After death of al-Qaeda chief, Ayman Zawahiri, who was killed in a US drone strike in the Afghan capital Kabul, al-Qaeda scholars suggested that Moroccan Abd al-Rahman al-Maghribi (Mohamed Abaytah) could be potentially a leader of the terror group given his close relationship to Zawahiri as well as his status within al-Qaeda’s senior leadership.
Al-Maghrebi — who is sometimes described as the Fox of al-Qaeda and whom the US has officially designated as a terrorist — is believed to be in his early fifties and comes from Marrakech.
al-Maghrebi allegedly left Morocco in 1996 to study software programming in Cologne, Germany. A few years later, in 1999, al-Maghrebi left Germany for Afghanistan to train at the al-Faruq camp near Kandahar before being pulled from training by Khalid Sheikh Muhammad—the head of both al-Qaeda’s External Operations and Media Committee—and was reassigned to work for al-Qaeda’s Media Committee. In Afghanistan he married Zawahiri’s daughter and made a family. He was appointed as head of al-Qaeda’s influential Al-Sahab media wing. According to the German magazine Der Spiegel, Abd al-Rahman had a brilliant career inside Al Qaeda. His software and computer skills made him a great asset within the group’s Media Committee.
After Fall of Kabul in 2001, al-Maghrebi fled to Iran, but reportedly relocated to Pakistan in 2003. According to documents obtained during the 2011 military operation against Osama bin Laden, al-Maghrebi has been a rising star in al-Qaeda for many years. In 2012, al-Maghrebi began serving as al-Qaeda’s general manager in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Since international counterterrorism pressure continued for many years he used to return to Iran where he currently resides. There have been a number of news messages about his death. He was originally reported to have been killed in Waziristan; recently, France announced he had been killed in Mali. However he is apparently alive and, allegedly, is a serious contender to take over from Zawahiri. On January 12, 2021, the U.S. Department of State designated al-Maghrebi as an SDGT.
Al-Maghrebi has already started creating serious concern in the Kingdom. It fears that, having him at the helm, the terrorist group may start focusing more squarely on Morocco. Given the Kingdom’s normalisation of its relations with Israel, and its close strategic partnership with the US, there are certainly good reasons why it may want to target Morocco. This sense of vulnerability is only heightened by the presence of al-Qa’ida-linked groups in the Sahel.
abd-al-rahman-al-maghrebiRabat has already found itself in the firing line of the organisation’s propaganda campaign. In April 2022, Zawahiri posted a video message threatening Morocco, Egypt, and a number of European countries, and referred to the Kingdom as ‘an enemy of Islam’.
As a result, the domestic media has been littered with reports suggesting that al-Maghrebi may seek not only to recruit more Moroccans to al-Qa’ida, but to launch a campaign attacking the Kingdom inside, possibly in revenge for Zawahiri’s killing.
However, such concerns may well be exaggerated. There is no confirmation that al-Maghrebi will take over from Zawahiri. While his name is certainly in the running, there are other candidates that would appear to be more likely successors, including the organization’s founding members. Al-Maghrebi may be a senior figure in al-Qaeda but he was not one of the founders.
Mohamed Ibrahim Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian national and al-Qa’ida veteran, who is also in Iran under the protection of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, is also in the candidate list.
He was low-key former Egyptian special forces officer. But now he is Al Qaeda high-rank member. Al-Adel was suspected of being involved in the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981, and left the country in 1988 to join the mujahideen fighting Soviet occupation in Afghanistan. Al-Adel often called the third-ranking al Qaeda official. He helped to plan the bomb attacks against the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar as Salaam in 1998 and organized Al Qaeda training camps in Sudan, Pakistan and Afghanistan in the 1990s.
saif-al-adelIn 2004, al-Adel’s diary was found during a raid in Saudi Arabia. As for the organization role he used to be a trainer, military leader and member of bin Laden’s security detail.
Before joining Al Qaeda he was a member of Egypt’s Islamic Jihad organisation, which was bent on toppling the state. Al-Adel was linked to the killing of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan in 2002.
Al-Adel was appointed as a caretaker leader after bin Laden’s death. He is supported pretty strongly to be one of the preferred candidates despite the fact that his business connections with Iran could be a handicap for the organization. Thus, in case of being elected, most of the al-Qaeda branches will pledge allegiance to him, given his history with the organization and the stature he has within the jihadi circles.
Among possible candidate is an Algerian citizen Yezid Mebarek. He is also known as Abu Ubaydah Yusuf al-Anabi, succeeded as emir of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in 2020, when a French raid killed his predecessor, after running one of the group’s leadership councils and being a member of another.
Just like al-Maghrebi, a 53-year Mebarekm ran media operations for AQIM, using a 2013 video to call for global attacks against French interests after Paris sent troops to help quash a militant insurgency in Mali. Mebarek is a veteran of Algeria’s 1990s civil war between the government and Islamist forces, promoting through the ranks of a militant splinter group, the GSPC. However, Mebarek is reported to suffer from old injuries and to lack the charismatic pull of his predecessor in AQIM Abdelmalek Droukdel.
The other candidate is Ahmed Diriye, emir of the Somali militant group, al-Shabaab, which announced a merger with al-Qaeda in 2012. According to the US intelligence, he shares his predecessor’s ‘vision for al-Shabaab’s terrorist attacks in Somalia as an element of al-Qaida’s greater global aspirations’.
Al-Qaeda’s next permanent emir will be picked by its Shura or governing council. The Shura council consists of the terror outfit core members. As for important matters, Shura members are known to be in touch with al-Qaeda-affiliate branches through the outfit’s information committees where Al-Maghrebi plays one of prominent roles.
Thus, even if al-Maghrebi does take over, fears that the organisation would focus more on Morocco may be unfounded. Al-Maghrebi himself is not known for his interest or involvement in Moroccan affairs. He has few if any connections to local terrorist networks in the Kingdom. The group is very weak in Morocco with current terrorist suspects generally more connected to Islamic State (IS), either ideologically or practically. In addition, al-Maghrebi is in Iran, making his ability to lead or control the organisation more challenging.
Moreover, al-Qa’ida has been shattered over the past two decades. Its structures are evaluated as weak; many of its key leaders have been killed or detained thereby diminishing institutional knowledge and relationships within the organisation. It has also struggled to gain new recruits.
Thus Morocco’s fears may be overblown, even if al-Maghrebi does end up taking over as head. It does not mean that one should rule out the possibility of further opportunistic attacks by militantі inside Morocco. There are thoughts that al-Qa’ida does not have the strength to refocus its attentions on the Kingdom and target it in any significant fashion.
In the short-term, at least Islamic State will remain a far more potent adversary. This month the Bureau central d’investigations judiciaires (BCIJ) announced that it had arrested a 36 year old man in Tetouan who is suspected of being affiliated to IS. He had apparently been active on social media networks where he had shared and promoted ‘extremist subversive ideology and incitement of the planning of criminal projects targeting people and public and private infrastructure.’
Thus, if al-Adel or al-Maghrebi will be elected to Al-Qaeda highest position the key question will be the place from where they would operate: Iran, Afghanistan, Africa, or somewhere else?
Nowadays Adel and Maghribi’s location provokes accusations that they cannot make independent decisions and that Iran is using them.
We think that Tehran, who has been providing a haven for top Al-Qaeda managers for years, could give them operational base in Iran. It will rise a bids of influence level in the Middle East. Iranian alliance with Russia is also strengthening Tehran-Moscow-Al-Qaeda axis. Thus Iran will increase an influence among Sunni society, Russia will get an opportunity to use al-Qaeda to gain geopolitical interests (providing ops under false flag) and al-Qaeda will get an access to additional financial resources and protection from Western counterterrorism efforts. The fact is that after February 24 a terrorist threats in Europe have decreased. There were no significant jihadi attacks in the region. Moscow is interested in such scenario, because al-Qaeda’s move to appoint an Iran-based leader would add another layer of tensions between Washington and Tehran, amid stalled nuclear negotiations.
