Extremist thought to be in Iran is de facto new leader of al-Qaida, UN says

A veteran Egyptian extremist thought to be based in Iran is now the de facto leader of al-Qaida, a UN report based on intelligence supplied by member states has said.

Saif al-Adel, 62, has long been tipped as the most likely to succeed Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was killed by a US airstrike in Kabul last year, but there has been no official announcement from the group nor other confirmation that the former Egyptian special forces soldier has taken charge.

One member state objected to the inclusion in the report of a reference to the presence of the new al-Qaida leader in Iran, the document says. This is believed to be Iran, which has long denied giving any support to al-Qaida, though it is now widely known that dozens of senior members of the group and their families sought safety in Iran after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks of 2001.

The status of al-Qaida members in Iran has never been entirely clear, with their situations varying over the 20 years since their arrival. Some appear to have been held for long periods in various forms of detention; others were allowed significant freedoms. They include members of the family of Osama bin Laden, the founder of al-Qaida, who was killed in Pakistan by US special forces in 2011.

In 2020, a senior leader of al-Qaida was shot dead on a street in Tehran, reportedly by Israeli operatives acting on a request from Washington.

The question of succession within al-Qaida is considered critical by intelligence services, with Bin Laden and Zawahiri having imposed different strategies on the group during their time at its head.

The organisation has struggled to remain relevant, with an increasingly elderly leadership failing to mobilise significant support among younger potential recruits.

Though al-Qaida has distanced itself from the virulent anti-Shia rhetoric of Isis, its ideology is still rooted in harsh sectarian strands of belief and practice. These dismiss Shia Muslims as heretics and enemies of the Sunni majority. Most Iranians are Shia.