New York, June 8 (ANI): The death of Al-Qaeda's deputy leader, Abu Yahya al-Libi, might lead to a shift in power from the group's dwindling leadership in Pakistan to its autonomous franchises in Yemen, United States counterterrorism officials have said.
According to analysts, Libi's killing may even augur increased violence as more impetuous fighters vie to seize the mantle of global leadership, reports the New York Times.
At the top of that list are leaders from the affiliate in Yemen, formally known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or A.Q.A.P., who three times in the last three years have tried unsuccessfully to blow up commercial airliners bound for the U.S., the paper said.
Libi's death has torn at the connective tissue between the group's embattled leadership in Pakistan and its far-flung affiliates across the Middle East and Africa, stated the paper.
Even with the network's operatives in Pakistan under siege, Al-Qaeda's wings in Yemen, North Africa and even Iraq have had little difficulty sustaining a wave of violence, a trend that is likely to continue well after Libi's death, officials said.
In Somalia, the Shabab, the most recently anointed Qaeda affiliate, include several dozen foreign fighters, some with U.S. passports that could allow them to slip back into the country, reports the paper.
According to the paper, U.S. officials expressed their deepest concerns over the Yemeni affiliate, led by Nasser al-Wuhayshi, a Saudi who served as Bin Laden's personal secretary in the 1990s and who has overseen attacks against both Yemen and the U.S.
Some analysts express concerns that the shift in power is likely to lead to more attacks.
"What is coming next is a generation whose ideological positions are more virulent and who, owing to the removal of older figures with clout, are less likely to be amenable to restraining their actions," said Leah Farrall, a former senior counterterrorism intelligence analyst with the Australian Federal Police. (ANI)
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