August 12, 2013 | Quote
Viewpoint: Zawahiri’s Bid for al-Qaeda Comeback Presses Obama
President Barack Obama said in May that al-Qaeda was “on the path to defeat”, but now it seems the terrorist threat has grown, with the US temporarily shutting diplomatic outposts across the Middle East. Former US state department spokesman PJ Crowley looks at why.
Nineteen US embassies were closed after hints of a terrorist plot were revealed during an intercepted conversation between al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and Nasir al-Wuhayshi, the leader of al-Qaeda's franchise in Yemen.
In May, Mr Obama described the “future of terrorism” as one of recurrent plots by a dangerous but less capable al-Qaeda and its affiliates and sympathisers against US interests and diplomatic facilities around the world. That future is happening now across the Middle East.
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The Zawahiri phone call shows the new al-Qaeda: the core leadership still in play but no longer at the centre of the action, with the strongest operational capacity found in al-Qaeda's affiliate, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
Mr al-Wuhayshi wears two hats, according to the Long War Journal. He is AQAP's leader and also al-Qaeda's general manager.
There is no indication the intelligence behind this plot has been made to sound dramatic for political reasons. The administration's response has received bipartisan support in Washington, with little of the political acrimony that followed the Benghazi attack last September.