Laden

Washington, Sept. 16: Osama bin Laden’s deputy has seized control of al Qaida and rebuilt the terror network into an organisation capable of launching complex terror attacks in Britain and America.

Intelligence officials have told The Sunday Telegraph that bin Laden has not chaired a meeting of al Qaida’s ruling shura, or council, in more than two years.

Instead, Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s nominal number two, is credited with rebuilding the terror network since the Afghan war in 2001.

Intelligence sources in Washington have revealed that Western spy chiefs were recently forced to revise dramatically their view that al Qaida was so depleted that it was little more than a cheerleader for extremists.

Instead, British and American intelligence agencies believe that a network of terrorist cells, funded, controlled and supported by al Qaida’s central command, based in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan, is in place again.

Al-Zawahiri’s task has been made easier because not a single prominent al Qaida leader has been captured since March 2006, nearly 18 months ago.

Citing information gathered by Pakistani intelligence, Bruce Hoffman, a member of the US Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Centre, said: “Bin Laden is the brand name but al-Zawahiri is the grand-strategist.

“He has taken control of al Qaida. Despite the new video [released this month], bin Laden has ceased to be a major force in decision-making and propaganda effort.”

A window on the changing outlook on al Qaida came in July when a US government National Intelligence Estimate, concluded that the organisation had “regrouped”.

Hoffman said: “The idea that they were just a franchise for ideology was simply not true. While we were saying that al Qaida had been diminished and degraded, it was just wishful thinking.”