Al Qaeda’s leadership is on the verge of extinction now that its No. 2 leader, political philosopher Abu Yahya al-Libi, was killed by a U.S. drone strike Monday in Pakistan, where the Libyan-born man was hiding among a group of foreign fighters.
The death of al-Libi leaves Egyptian doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s leader since the death of Osama bin Laden, isolated at the top of the terrorist organization.
“Zawahiri will be hard-pressed to find any one person who can readily step into Abu Yahya’s shoes,” said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “There is no one who even comes close in terms of replacing the expertise AQ has just lost.”
Zawahiri, who replaced Osama bin Laden after bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALs last year, is suspected to be in hiding in Pakistan. The deaths of al-Libi and bin Laden “must be unnerving to Zawahiri, who has to know the U.S. is hot on his tail,” said the official. “I’m guessing he’s constantly on the move, hoping to evade U.S. and foreign intelligence in the region. But that won’t last forever.”
Al-Libi is one of at least 25 senior al Qaeda leaders who have been successfully targeted and killed in drone strikes since the Bush administration first launched the attacks. About half of those 25 have been killed since bin Laden’s death last year.
Al-Libi’s demise is a critical blow to the shattered remnants of al Qaeda. He was seen as a top thinker and religious leader in the organization. “Abu Yahya’s religious credentials gave him the authority to issue fatwas, operational approvals, and guidance to the core group in Pakistan and regional affiliates,” the U.S. official said. “[He] played a critical role in the group’s planning against the West, providing oversight of the external operations efforts.”
With al-Libi’s death, al Qaeda’s leadership in Pakistan will confront difficulties connecting with affiliated groups in North Africa and Yemen. He was well-respected by cells in those regions and had already developed close ties with them.
Only bits and pieces of al-Libi’s life prior to joining al Qaeda are known. He was a former chemistry student who attended Sebha University in Libya, going by Muhammad Hasan Qaid. During the late 1980s or early 1990s, he traveled to Afghanistan’s eastern Logar province. During his time in Afghanistan, he joined the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a foreign fighter insurgency organization in the region that fought the former Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan.
He focused much of his writing on the politically fragile country of Yemen, which is now considered the hub of one the terror organization’s strongest cells, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
In a February 2010 report titled “Yemeni Government to America: I Sacrifice Myself for Your Sake,” al-Libi predicted with striking accuracy the failure of that country’s government and the recent revolution there.
He said America, spread thin by two wars, would use proxy fighters in the region and that the war would not end in Afghanistan but would encompass the Islamic world, and in particular Yemen.
“[Yemen] has found agents and collaborators who have said we will sacrifice ourselves for [the United States’] sake,” said al-Libi in a document obtained by The Washington Examiner last year. “The United States thought that the battle ended when the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was overthrown. It did not know that this was only the beginning.”
Sara A. Carter is The Washington Examiner’s national security correspondent. She can be reached at [email protected].
