Ayman Zuwahiri threatens anti-US terror offensive
Just five weeks before America’s presidential election, US intelligence reports signs that al Qaeda leader Ayman Zuwahiri is preparing a string of terrorist attacks as the sequel to the murders of US ambassador Chris Stevens and three other US officials in Benghazi on Sept. 11, according to evidence collected across Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
His twin goals are to influence the poll’s results and to build up his reputation as a master of spectacular terrorist operations. Eager to impress Al Qaeda’s franchise chiefs, Zuwahiri is reported to be celebrating his “Benghazi feat” – his first as Al Qaeda leader – and boasting of the harm to the Obama campaign caused by his administration’s stammering denials that it was an act of terror. The new terrorist chief claims his tactics had an instant, devastating impact on Washington and they were therefore superior to those of his predecessor, Osama bin Laden.
The Al Qaeda leader is now seen – not only by US intelligence experts, but by most experts in the West, the Middle East and Israel – to be impatient to capitalize on this success and so dramatically expose to the Muslim world America’s perceived weakness and his own worth as commander of the jihadist movement.
His planning for a new offensive has taken advantage of the Arab Spring upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa and turned them around to strike at the heart of the Obama administration’s Middle East policy objectives. The Arab revolutions have let Islamist extremist and fundamentalist Salafi groups off the leash in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, while Lebanon Jordan, Iraq and Syria teeter on the brink of chaos. The extremists now enjoy free rein to organize for political action while also gaining access to vast stocks of modern arms.
In the view of Western counterterrorism experts, Salafi groups have long maintained clandestine relations with al Qaeda, especially Ayman Zuwahiri, who joined al Qaeda in the first place as head of the violent Egyptian Islamic Jihad and stayed in close touch with its secret cells.
The Kenyan army has captured Somalia’s Indian Ocean port of Kismayo, driving Al Qaeda’s Somali franchise Al Shabaab out of its last strategic stronghold, the key to controlling southern Somalia. The small Kenyan army, navy and air force fought to victory Saturday, Sept. 29, after a year-long ground, sea and air offensive.
