According to news reports, the guy replacing Osama bin Laden as the head of al-Qaeda will be his old physician pal Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Al-Zawahiri is said to have helped plan the attacks on the United States of 11 September 2001, and there’s a $25 million price on his head. The same was true of Osama bin Laden, who was killed by order of President Barack Obama on 2 May 2011.
Apparently al-Qaeda formally announced the ascension of Ayman al-Zawahiri yesterday. Almost like when you read the business section of the newspaper and find a reprinted press release saying Mindy McWhomperstein was promoted to VP of Substandard Marketing for the Chromium Division of Coca-Cola. You can read the al-Qaeda announcement right here. Be warned, they are some wordy fellers. Something about fanaticism that makes you want to just go on and on and on and on. And on.
This report from FoxNews dismisses the idea there’s any new threat with al-Zawahiri being the new “CEO.” It’s a short, nearly newsless piece that tsks-tsks the notion that al-Zawahiri will try to attack the U.S. as revenge for the killing of bin Laden.
TIME calls al-Zawahiri the “shadow leader” of al-Qaeda here, as well as referring to him as a “blowhard physician” (is that a redundancy, you ask?). Not much respect there.
The New York Times practically declares it good news that al-Zawahiri is being made the leader of al-Qaeda. Partly because he’s lacking in the “charisma” that bin Laden had (you all noticed bin Laden’s charisma, right?), and also because he’s old. And it took al-Qaeda seven weeks to figure out who was going to take the wheel, which the experts say reflects how weak the organization is.
Because obviously if you take a long time to finally decide your leader should be just another old guy from the same crowd, your organization is in big trouble. So says the U.S. government.