Word: zawahiri
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Veteran FBI agent Danny Coleman, who served for years as the bureau's ranking expert on Osama Bin Laden, Ayman Zawahiri and the rest of the Qaeda inner circle, doesn't get too excited when he hears a report of Zawahiri's demise - such as the one that briefly grabbed headlines on Saturday before Pakistani officials shot it down...
...Three years ago, somebody gave me a skull that was supposed to be his," says Coleman, who recently retired. It was a nice try. "It had a prayer burn on the forehead" the ex-agent says. "Zawahiri has a very distinctive one on his forehead...
...four years since bin Laden disappeared during the siege of Tora Bora, intelligence agencies around the world have struggled to glean information about the whereabouts and inner workings of al-Qaeda's high command. U.S. intelligence on al-Zarqawi, bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is not strong. But counterterrorism and intelligence officials tell TIME they believe al-Zarqawi has expanded his reach outside Iraq's borders to the extent that he has become al-Qaeda's most dangerous operative. The U.S. believes al-Zarqawi has contacted about two dozen other terrorist groups in more than 30 countries...
Terrorism experts say bin Laden remains the spiritual leader of global jihad but is no longer calling the shots. "Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri may have turned al-Zarqawi into something bigger than themselves," says French counterterrorism expert Roland Jacquard. "Strategically, they didn't have much choice. They needed to give the Iraq jihad the backing and legitimacy of al-Qaeda's direction. But it's turned out to be a very emancipating development for al-Zarqawi." Evidence suggests,though, that he may have gone too far. In October the U.S. released a letter that it said was sent...
...intelligence to dupe al-Zarqawi, the CIA and Pentagon insist that the 13-page missive is not a forgery and that it reveals differences between the old al-Qaeda leaders and al-Zarqawi over tactics and ideology. At the same time, the letter also indicates an acknowledgment by al-Zawahiri that the al-Qaeda hierarchy has been reordered. "It wasn't the letter of an overall commander pulling the choke chain of a subordinate," says Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert with the Rand Corp. think tank in Washington, who believes it is genuine. "It was diplomatic, cajoling, flattering...