Several sources claim that al-Qaeda top dog Zawahiri has died of natural causes in Afghanistan

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Al-Qaeda chief Zawahiri has died in Afghanistan — sources,” by Baker Atyani and Sayed Salahuddin, Arab News Pakistan, November 20, 2020:

ISLAMABAD/KABUL: Egyptian national Ayman Al-Zawahiri, 69, has died in Afghanistan likely of natural causes, several sources in Pakistan and Afghanistan told Arab News this week, just days after reports of the Al-Qaeda leader’s passing made the rounds on social media.

Zawahiri’s last appearance was in a video message on this year’s anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in the United States.
His death, if confirmed, opens up a deep leadership vacuum within Al-Qaeda as at least two senior commanders who would have been in line to replace him have been killed recently: Hamza bin Laden, a son of slain Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was killed in a US counter-terrorism operation, the White House announced last year; and Abu Muhamamd Al-Masri, believed to be Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, who was killed in Iran this year, according to media reports.
Arab News spoke to at least four security sources in Pakistan and Afghanistan to confirm Zawahiri’s death. Two said he had died. All spoke off the record as they were not authorized to speak to the media on the issue.

“He [Zawahiri] died last week in Ghazni,” an Al-Qaeda translator who still enjoys close ties with the group, told Arab News on Tuesday. “He died of asthma because he had no formal treatment.”

A Pakistani security official based in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan also said Zawahiri had died.

“We believe he is no longer alive,” he said, declining to be named. “We are firm that he has died of natural causes.”

A source close to Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan told Arab News on Monday that the militant leader had passed away this month, November, and a limited number of followers had attended his funeral prayers….

 

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Ayman Al-Zawahiri, co-founder of Al-Qaeda along with Osama bin Laden in 1988 in Pakistan’s Peshawar, is reported to be dead.

An Arab News report claims that Al-Zawahiri died in Afghanistan a month ago due to natural causes.

The dreaded organization is scrambling to fill the top as two other senior commanders, tipped to take over, were recently killed.

Hamza bin Laden, a son of bin Laden, was killed in a US counter-terrorism operation last year, according to the White House.

The New York Times in a report last week stated that Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command Abdullah Ahmad Abdullah, aka Abu Muhammad al-Masri, was secretly killed in Iran’s Tehran in August by two Israeli operatives.

An Egyptian national, 69-year-old Zawahiri was last seen in a video during the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks this year two months ago. The 9/11 attacks were a series of four coordinated terrorist strikes by the Al-Qaeda in the United States on 11 September 2001.

The killing of Laden, a Saudi, in a US operation in Pakistan in 2011 left the beleaguered group in the clutches of Zawahiri, but experts say he did not possess Laden’s ability to rally Islamic radicals from around the world.

Rita Katz, director of the jihadist media monitor SITE, cited unconfirmed reports to speculate Zawahiri had died.

“It is very typical of Al-Qaeda to not publish news about the death of its leaders in a timely manner,” she said, according to news agency AFP.

Who’s next? Many experts point towards one person to take over the mantle – Saif al-Adel, a former lieutenant-colonel in the Egyptian armed forces, who then joined the Egyptian jihadist movement back in the 1980s.

Adel was arrested and later released, following which he ended up in Afghanistan – the base for Laden and Zawahiri, eventually joining the Al-Qaeda.