THE FULL TEXT of the just-released letter from al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri to Iraqi insurgent leader Abu Musab Zarqawi, dated July 9, 2005, makes it clear that not only are al-Zawahiri and bin Laden symbolic leaders to the global jihad, but they are still active in running their terror network, too.

The letter includes references to the fighting in Afghanistan, a peripheral acknowledgement of ongoing al Qaeda-backed insurgencies in Chechnya and Kashmir, and a discussion of the steps the network was forced to take to ensure the security of its senior leaders following the capture of senior al Qaeda leader Abu Faraj al-Libbi (“No Arab brother [Arab al Qaeda leader] was arrested because of him . . . the brothers tried–and were successful–to contain the fall of Abu al-Faraj as much as they could”). And the fact that al-Zawahiri now seeks information from Zarqawi is proof enough that he is not content to watch from the sidelines in Iraq: at several points he laments the fact that his current security arrangements prevent him from journeying to Iraq to take part in the jihad.