Saif al-Adel is the new leader of Al-Qaeda

Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian background from Iran, is the leader of Al-Qaeda after Ayman al-Zawahiri's death in July 2022, the US State Department announced on Wednesday.

Our assessment matches that of the UN that the new de facto leader of al-Qaeda, Saif al-Adel, is located in Iran”, a State Department spokesman said.

The United Nations report released on Tuesday said the dominant view of member states is that Adel is now the leader of the group “representing its continuation”.

But, the group has not officially declared it “emir”, due to the sensitivity to the concerns of Taliban authorities in Afghanistan, who did not want to admit that Zawahir was killed by an American missile at a house in Kabul last year, according to the UN.

In addition, the UN report says, Sunni Al-Qaeda Islamism is sensitive to the issue of Adel, who lives in Iran mainly in rain, reports AFP, Klankosova.tv.

Its “location raises questions that have a bearing on al-Qaeda ambitions to confirm the leadership of a global movement in the face of challenges from ISIL”, the UN report says, referring to another name for the rival Islamic State group.

Adel, 62, is a former Egyptian special forces lieutenant and is part of Al-Qaeda's old guard.

It helped build the group's operational capacities and train some of the kidnappers who took part in the September 11th 2001 attack on the United States, according to the US Project against extremism.

He has been in Iran since 2002 or 2003, at first under house arrest, but later cheap enough to make trips to Pakistan, according to Ali Sougan, a former FBI anti-terrorism investigation.

“Saif is one of the most experienced professional soldiers in the jihadist movement worldwide, and his body carries the wounds of battle,” wrote Sougan in a 2021 article on the CTC Journal of the West Point Center for Combating Terrorism.