In a departure from Bush doctrine, President Obama confined the War on Terror to al Qaeda, insisting America is not at war with Islamic extremists or even terrorists, and on that front, he’s practically declared victory.
As Obama told Marines at Camp Pendleton last month, “We decimated the al Qaeda leadership that attacked us on 9/11. Al Qaeda’s top ranks have been hammered.”
When a White House reporter later questioned that assertion in the face of al Qaeda threats to US embassies, Obama reasserted his claim: “Core al Qaeda is on its heels, has been decimated.”
Apparently his top terror-fighting agency didn’t get the message.
In fact, the president might want to check the FBI’s website, because its “Most Wanted Terrorists” list paints a decidedly gloomier picture of progress versus al Qaeda.
Yes, al Qaeda kingpin Osama bin Laden’s ugly mug is gone. But many other key leaders in the group remain on the hunt list, including some who were calling the shots before 9/11 yet never brought to justice. They are still dangerous, the FBI warns, and most have multimillion-dollar bounties on their heads, including:
AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI: The new al Qaeda No. 1 took over for bin Laden when he was killed in Pakistan by US commandos in 2011.
Last month’s shuttering of US embassies across the Mideast was prompted by intercepts of rare chatter between the 62-year-old Zawahiri and the head of al Qaeda’s Yemen branch, its most dangerous offshoot.
U.S. intelligence picked up an order from Zawahiri to Nasir al-Wuhayshi, the head of its Yemen wing, to carry out an attack. Their coordination alarmed counterterror officials and led to the unprecedented closure of embassies in 19 Mideast and African nations.
Administration officials were shocked to see Zawahiri involved in the operational detail of the terror plot. Like Obama, they thought al Qaeda’s core leadership had been reduced to playing a symbolic role on the world terror stage.
On the contrary, “there are active lines of communications between the center and the franchises,” noted ex-CIA counterterror analyst Aki J. Peritz, and it “appears that al Qaeda core has some level of control over AQAP (al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula).”
An Egyptian surgeon, Zawahiri joined al Qaeda in 1998 and was one of the brains behind the 9/11 attacks. He also had a hand in the US embassy bombings in Africa.
Though the precise whereabouts of the world’s most-wanted terrorist are unknown, he is believed to be holed up in Pakistan. The US is offering $25 million for his capture.