Explainer: Who is Al-Qaeda's new chief Saif Al-Adel with $10 million US bounty on his head

United States Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI] on Wednesday announced up to $10 million bounty under the Rewards For Justice Program to get any information for the apprehension or conviction of new Iran-based Egyptian Al-Qaeda chief, Saif Al-Adel. The latter was responsible for the security of ex-al-Qaeda founder and chief Osama bin Laden who was gunned down on May 2, 2011, at his compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad by United States Navy SEALs of the US Naval Special Warfare Development Group [also called DEVGRU or SEAL Team Six].

Bin Laden was the mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001 [9/11] attack on New York's World Trade Center but Al-Adel trained some of the terrorists from al-Qaeda who hijacked four commercial airplanes and deliberately crashed two of the planes into the upper floors of the North and South Towers. The third plane was smashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. The US Department of State has now announced that the FBI's "most wanted" terrorist Saif Al-Adel has taken Bin-Laden's place as the chief following the death of Ayman al-Zawahiri in July 2022. 

Zawahiri served as bin Laden's deputy and was killed by two hellfire drone missiles in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul last year in an over-the horizon counterterrorism operation. His death was confirmed by the US Department of Defense, noting that it is a significant blow to al-Qaeda and will degrade the group's ability to operate. 

As seen on a computer screen from a DVD prepared by Al-Sahab production, al-Qaida's Ayman al-Zawahri speaks in Islamabad, Pakistan. Credit: AP

In a detailed report published Tuesday, United Nations claimed that while he has not been declared as the "emir" yet, there exists a predominant view among member states that Adel is now al-Qaeda's new leader, "representing continuity for now." UN also claimed that Al-Adel has not been named officially over sensitivity surrounding Afghanistan Taliban. The Sunni Islamist terrorist faction Al-Qaeda is also wary about the new chief residing in Shiite Iran, the report further claimed. The US Department of State, on Wednesday, confirmed the UN's assessment saying that it aligns with the intelligence that the new de facto head of the al-Qaida terror group, Saif al-Adel, is based in the Islamic Republic. 

“When it comes to his presence there, offering safe haven to al-Qaida is just another example of Iran’s wide-ranging support for terrorism, its destabilizing activities in the Middle East and beyond,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said at a White House presser. 

62-year-old Al-Adel is a former Egyptian special forces officer who is also popularly known by the name Ibrahim al-Madani. He was born around April 11, 1960, or 1963 and served under the ex-al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden's personal security. The then-Egyptian veteran was also the leader of the Hittin Committee, which governs and coordinates the group's transnational activities. In 2001 there was a merger between al-Qaeda and Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad, of which Al-Adel was a member. “His [Al-Adel's] location raises questions that have a bearing on Al-Qaeda’s ambitions to assert leadership of a global movement in the face of challenges from ISIL,” the UN report stated. The latter was wanted by the FBI in connection with the August 7, 1998, bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya that killed 244 Americans and injured more than 4,500.

Syria's al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front. Credit: AP

An ex-Egyptian lieutenant colonel, old guard of Al-Qaeda

Al-Adel was the former Egyptian lieutenant colonel and a key figure in the old guard of Al-Qaeda, who cemented the terrorist group's operational capacity. He has been in southeastern Iran since 2002 or 2003. At first, the new al-Qaeda leader was under house arrest, but he was later allowed to make several trips to Pakistan, according to Ali Soufan, a former FBI counter-terrorism investigator. Al-Adel runs several al-Qaeda training camps across the African region, Sudan, Pakistan, and Afghanistan in the 1990s and is linked with the killing of WSJ's journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan in 2002 by decapitation. An FBI special agent who tracked al-Qaeda operatives described Al-Adel's profile with the Combating Terrorism Center as a "shrewd figure with a poker face."

"His temper, too, has become notorious. Possessed of a 'caustic tongue', he is apt to threaten violence against anyone who displeases him, and is known to meet disloyalty with swift and ruthless force," the ex-FBI agent said. Furthermore, Soufan continues that Bin-laden's one-time bodyguard "can be contemptuous, even brutal, in the heat of the moment. But he has also been known as a font of avuncular advice. In happier times, he showed a talent for soccer and a penchant for practical jokes." Having spent most time of his career as a trainer, an operative of al-Qaeda who provided strategic guidance to far-flung franchises in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, Al-Adel has made a gigantic leap to being the chief of the terrorist group. 

"Saif is one of the most experienced professional soldiers in the worldwide jihadi movement, and his body bears the scars of battle," Soufan further stated in the piece written for West Point Combating Terrorism Centre’s CTC Journal.