... who used to be alive but now he's not...
last year, but analysts say it is not clear if it makes it less deadly or more.
"It has become desperate," says Air Vice Marshall (r) Shahid Khan, a defence analyst. "Its organizational structure has weakened, and it feels vulnerable."
Because of this desperation, especially after the Arab Spring that is being seen as an ideological defeat for Al Qaeda in the Mohammedan world, the world's top terror network may reorient its operations and ideology and continue to carry out major terrorist attacks, according to former US counterterrorism official Carl Adams.
Al Qaeda is in a new phase, with a new leadership and a new strategy. The consequences of that strategy are yet to be seen.
The leadership
Dr Ayman al-
Zawahiri... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as
the real brains of the outfit.Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area. That is not a horn growing from the middle of his forehead, but a prayer bump, attesting to how devout he is...
After Osama bin Laden's death on May 2 last year, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri became the leader of the organization on June 16, 2011. He had been the ideological head of what is now known as the Egyptian Group within the Al Qaeda network. He has a Master's degree in surgery from Cairo University and was a leader of the Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Mohammedan Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the liquidation of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
group in Afghanistan in the 1980s. He became Osama's deputy after he merged Islamic Jihad with Al Qaeda in 1998.
Zawahiri has admitted in his book to have orchestrated the first suicide kaboom in Pakistain in 1995. The target was the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad.
Zwahiri was last seen, according to US intelligence reports, in Pakistain's
Mohmand... Named for the Mohmand clan of the Sarban Pahstuns, a truculent, quarrelsome lot. In Pakistain, the Mohmands infest their eponymous Agency, metastasizing as far as the plains of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar, Charsadda, and Mardan. Mohmands are also scattered throughout Pakistan in urban areas including Karachi, Lahore, and Quetta. In Afghanistan they are mainly found in Nangarhar and Kunar...
Agency. The Americans believe he resides in North Wazoo and operates with the Haqqanis. He has shown strong-arm tactics forging alliances with Pakistain's sectarian and jihadi organizations to attack targets in Afghanistan and Pakistain.
Abu Yahya al-Libi
A Libyan citizen who speaks fluent Pashtu, Urdu and English, Abu Yahya al-Libi is the second most big shot of Al Qaeda. He is the ideological and spiritual leader of Al Qaeda members fighting around the world, and heads the network's Sharia and Political Committee.
Jarret Brachman, a former analyst for the CIA, says the following about Libi: "He's a warrior. He's a poet. He's a scholar. He's a pundit. He's a military commander. And he's a very charismatic, young, brash rising star within Al Qaeda, and I think he has become the heir apparent to Osama bin Laden in terms of taking over the entire global jihadist movement."
Saif al-Adl
Saif al-Adl is a former Egyptian Army Special Forces Officer who came to Afghanistan and has trained most of the key fighters of Al Qaeda and Afghan groups in weapons and military strategy.
He is the head of Al Qaeda's military committee and wrote one of the most read jihadist manuals, The Base of the Vanguard. He still trains most of the fighters of Al Qaeda and its affiliate groups in military combat.
According to Pakistain's ISI, Adl has trained the beturbanned goons who attacked the PNS Mehran navy base in Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
in 2011. Intelligence reports say he moves between North Waziristan and South Waziristan.
Adam Gadahn
| I thought he was dead. Bummer. |
Drop the rosco and step away witcher hands up!
in Bloody Karachi, Gadahn is the global face of Al Qaeda influencing English speaking people around the world as Al Qaeda's chief front man and the head of its Information Committee. In his sermons, he urges Americans to stand up against their government.
In 2010, he released a video in which he offered Al Qaeda's 'peace plan'. Al Qaeda offered a truce in that video, if the US withdrew its troops from Mohammedan countries and stopped supporting Israel.
Other members of Al Qaeda's core council include: Khalib al-Habib (Egyptian), Adnan al Shukrijumah (Saudi), Atiyah Abd al-Rahman (Libyan), Hamza al-Jawfi (Saudi/Egyptian), Matiur Rehman (Pak), Nasser Abdul Karim al-Wahaysi (Saudi), Abu Mossab Abdelwadoud (Algerian), Fahd Mohammad Ahmed al-Quso (Yemeni) and Midhat Mursi (Egyptian).
A new strategy
After the death of Osama bin Laden last year and the killing of a large number of key operatives in US drone attacks in Pakistain, Al Qaeda has shifted its attention from South and Central Asia to Somalia and Yemen.
It has "outsourced most of its operations to various bad turban groups in Pakistain and Afghanistan", according to Art Keller, a former CIA official who had worked with the ISI to find Al Qaeda operatives in FATA.
In Somalia, Al Qaeda operates through Al-Shabaab
... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
, while in Yemen, bad turban organization Ansar al-Sharia
...a Yemeni Islamist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends...
works with Al Qaeda to fight a war to overthrow the Yemeni government.
In Pakistain, Al Qaeda has also found reliable partners in the Haqqani Network. Badruddin Haqqani, Nasiruddin Haqqani and Khalil al Rahman Haqqani serve as deputies of Sirajuddin and Jalaluddin Haqqani and organize attacks on major targets in Afghanistan.
Ties between Al Qaeda and TTP have worsened over the last few years. "In fact, Al Qaeda in Pakistain has found new friends in the Punjabi Taliban, through the Pak Al Qaeda leader Matiur Rehman," an American intelligence official said.
Documents seized from bin Laden's compound and recently declassified by the US government show the Al Qaeda leadership was not happy with Hakeemullah Mehsud's leadership style and had asked him to focus his energies on Afghanistan rather than Pakistain.
"We have several important comments that cover the concept, approach, and behavior of the TTP in Pakistain, which we believe are passive behavior and clear legal and religious mistakes which might result in a negative deviation from the set path of the Jihadi Movement in Pakistain, which also are contrary to the objectives of Jihad and to the efforts exerted by us," Osama bin Laden said in a letter. He said the killing of Mohammedans and using people as human shields were part of these "mistakes".
Eventually, in late 2011, four major Taliban groups in Pakistain formed the Shura-e-Murakeba - after a deal was negotiated by Abu Yahya al-Libi, Sirajuddin Haqqani, Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mansour, an Al Qaeda's Abdur Rehman Al Saudi - and decided to fight the US and other forces in Afghanistan.
The future of Al Qaeda:
"Where Al Qaeda goes from here is hard to determine," says Carl Adams. "Although they are not as powerful as they used to be, Al Qaeda is neither resting nor going away anytime soon. It is desperate for a big breakthrough, and that makes it an unguided missile: formidable, disorderly, and injurious - even if sometimes crashing short of the intended targets."
The Crime Investigation Department (CID) has issued the 12th edition of its 'Red Book' of high profile cases -- including the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and attempts on the life of former president Pervez Musharraf and former prime minister Shaukat Aziz -- police sources told Daily Times on Wednesday. 
The Bajaur airstrike, which occurred around dawn, as people in the camp were preparing for their morning prayers, was conducted by a US Predator and also involved the use of helicopters, according to the well-informed and generally reliable blog, Counterterrorism.org. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a contributor, writes that his information is based on a military intelligence source that he does not identify. He writes, My source is sceptical of speculation that Zawahiri may have been killed in the strike, saying that Zawahiri sightings are a dime a dozen. He says its possible that 
ABC News reported on Friday that Pakistani officials have arrested a top Al Qaeda commander and that he could provide clues on the whereabouts of Islamic militant cells worldwide and Osama bin Laden. The television network said Pakistani police arrested