Jihadist Saif al-Adel, a former member of Egyptian special forces, has become the new leader of the al-Qaeda group after the assassination of Ayman al-Zawahiri last summer, the US State Department announced on Wednesday, as quoted by AFP and Agerpres. .

A soldier of the Egyptian special forcesPhoto: Mohamed el-Shahed / AFP / Profimedia Images

“Our assessment is the same as that of the United Nations, which is that the new de facto leader of al-Qaeda, Seif al-Adel, is based in Iran,” said a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Foreign Affairs, referring to the U.N. report released Tuesday.

According to the UN report, the prevailing opinion among member states is that Saif al-Adel is “now the de facto leader of al-Qaida, who is currently the heir apparent.”

However, according to this document, the group did not officially declare him “emir” for two reasons.

First of all, because this is a sensitive topic for the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan, who did not want to admit that Zawahiri was killed by Americans in a house in Kabul last year.

Second, because Saif al-Adel lives in Iran, a predominantly Shia country, while al-Qaeda is a Sunni group.

“Its location raises doubts about al-Qaeda’s ambitions to assert its leadership in the global movement in the face of challenges from ISIS, the rival Islamic State group,” the UN report said.

The last known photo of Saif al-Adel (PHOTO: FBI / AFP / Agerpres)

Who is the new leader of al-Qaeda

Saif al-Adel, 60, was a lieutenant colonel in Egypt’s special forces and is a figure in al-Qaeda’s old guard.

He helped expand the group’s operational capabilities and trained some of the fighters involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, according to the Countering Extremism Project. When he was an officer in the Egyptian army, he participated in the assassination of former Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat in 1981.

According to Ali Soufan, a former FBI investigator, he had been in Iran since 2002 or 2003 and, while initially under house arrest, was later able to travel to Pakistan.

“Saif is one of the most experienced professional soldiers in the global jihadist movement, and his body bears the scars of battle,” he wrote in the CTC Journal in 2021.

Saif al-Adel was elected interim leader of al-Qaeda in 2011 after the killing of Osama bin Laden in another US special operation.