Filling Osama bin Laden’s shoes is likely to be Al-Qaeda’s first litmus test following the killing of the group’s charismatic leader by a team of United States Navy SEALs on Sunday.
Egyptian Islamist and Al-Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al Zawahiri, who has now replaced Bin Laden as America’s most wanted terrorist, is the most obvious candidate to take over. Despite being a key motivational figure for Al-Qaeda’s rank and file, Mr. Zawahiri—who was trained as a surgeon in his native Egypt—is unlikely to be unable to match Bin Laden’s status, power and influence.
If anything, Mr. Zawahiri’s ascendancy as leader could accelerate factional infighting within the group. Mr. Zawahiri, a 59-year old physician, has alienated many within the group because he symbolizes what is perceived to be a dogmatic Egyptian influence. His abrasive personality and leadership style is believed to be off-putting for many in the organization.
Mr. Zawahiri, moreover, lacks the appeal Bin Laden had with non-jihadist audiences accentuated by his command of Arabic and his ability for more than a decade to conceptually link his radical ideas with the spectrum of grievances that sparked this year’s wave of anti-government protests sweeping the Middle East and North Africa.
Bin Laden failed however in recent months to turn the protests to his advantage by adapting to a popular movement that opted for peaceful rather than violent resistance and did not embrace jihad as its key strategy. If Bin Laden was unable to do so, Mr. Zawahiri certainly lacks the qualities to succeed where Bin Laden failed. His repeated statements in recent months amount to insider baseball targeting Al-Qaeda’s rank and file rather than a broader public.
Mr. Zawahiri’s credibility and appeal as an Islamist who dedicated his life to jihad dates back to the time that he was a teenager. It reached its peak when international media portrayed him 30 years ago in a cage in an Egyptian courtroom denouncing the torture he and his fellow detainees had suffered—for allegedly participating in the plot to kill President Anwar el-Sadat—and chanting, "We are Muslims. We are Muslims." That appeal has lost its allure for a broad swath of Arab public opinion since the eruption of the 2011 protests.
Although Mr. Zawahiri positioned himself as Al-Qaeda’s deputy leader, it is not clear that Bin Laden envisioned him as his automatic successor. Bin Laden repeatedly spoke about turning Al Qaeda into a broader Islamist movement capable of surviving him. To do so, he promoted several figures as his potential successors.
As a result, Mr. Zawahiri is believed to be competing with younger, upcoming leaders who have far greater combat experience than he does and are more likely to ensure that Al-Qaeda remains a potent threat to Arab authoritarian regimes as well as Western interests. Like Mr. Zawahiri, few of the other contenders will be able to recreate Bin Laden’s aura built on the fact that he chose to abandon his life of wealth and luxury in Saudi Arabia for the ascetics of a revolutionary and was able to leverage his heritage as a powerful recruitment and fund-raising tool.
Among Mr. Zawahiri’s foremost rivals is Anwar al-Awlaki, a charismatic Yemeni-American scholar, who has emerged as a successful recruiter for Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in the Gulf, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Mr. Awlaki has a considerable Internet following in the United States and Europe.
From a strategic point of view, both Mr. Zawahiri and Mr. Awlaki are likely to prove difficult targets to hunt down for US intelligence and counterterrorism forces. Mr. Awlaki, protected by his tribe, lives in Yemen, a country whose embattled president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, is clinging by the skin of his teeth to power. Mr. Saleh has refused in recent days to sign a Gulf Cooperation Council-mediated agreement with the Yemeni opposition that would have eased the president out of office within 30 days. His refusal could escalate the crisis in Yemen and accelerate its deterioration into chaos.
Mr. Zawahiri is believed to blend into Pakistani society much easier than Bin Laden did. His physical build is less striking than that of Mr. Bin Laden, who cut a tall, imposing figure that stood out in a crowd. He is reported to have repeatedly frustrated US attempts to target him with his ability to disappear in major Pakistani urban centers rather than stay holed up in one location.
Others possibly seeking to inherit Bin Laden’s mantle include Saif al-Adel, a member of Al-Qaida’s military committee. A former colonel in the Egyptian Special Forces, he was held under house arrest in Iran for nine years and only returned to Pakistan in the last year. His military training and experience offsets the disadvantage of his Egyptian roots.
Another is Abu Yahya al-Libi, a Libyan national who gained battle experience with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). Most LIFG members broke with Bin Laden in the 1990s by rejecting his global jihadism in favor of a struggle focused exclusively on the replacement of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi with an Islamist regime. Mr. Libi called in a video earlier this year on jihadists to join the resistance against Mr. Qaddafi, which he described as a "real jihad."
The greatest challenge for whoever emerges as Bin Laden’s successor will be the difficult task of adapting to what is a very different world in the Middle East and North Africa. The successful overthrow earlier this year of the presidents of Egypt and Tunisia by peaceful demonstrators calls Al-Qaeda’s concept of jihad into question.
Al-Qaeda’s new leader is likely to see opportunity in the brutal crackdown on demonstrators in countries like Bahrain, Syria and Libya. In Libya, the crackdown has led to a virtual civil war with Mr. Qaddafi’s opponents enjoying international backing. Al-Qaeda would bring a battle-hardened group to the table. To leverage that, he will have to moderate his extremist ideology to bring it more in line with the centrist nature of the Arab protests.
That could prove to be a tall order.