Al-Qaeda replacing dead and captured leaders

New evidence suggests that lower-ranking members and new recruits are being promoted

A new portrait of Al-Qaeda’s inner workings is emerging from the cache of information seized last month in Pakistan: Evidence indicates that the terror organisation is regenerating and bringing in new blood.

Senior intelligence officials have begun identifying a new generation of operatives who appear to be filling the vacuum created when leaders were killed or captured.

Using computer records, e-mail addresses and other documents seized after the arrest of Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan last month in Pakistan, intelligence analysts say they are finding that Al-Qaeda’s upper echelons are being filled by lower-ranking members and more recent recruits.

’They’re a little bit of both,’ one official said, describing Al-Qaeda’s new mid-level structure. ’Some who have been around and some who have stepped up. They’re reaching for their bench.’

While the findings may result in a significant intelligence coup for the Bush administration and its allies in Britain, they also create a far more complex picture of Al-Qaeda’s status than President George W. Bush presents on the campaign trail.

For the past several months, he has often claimed that much of Al-Qaeda’s leadership has been killed or captured; the new evidence suggests otherwise.

Officials, however, did not identify the more senior Al-Qaeda leaders. They said it was not yet clear to what extent Osama bin Laden still exercised control over the organisation, either directly or through his chief deputy, Ayman Zawahiri.

Officials still do not have a clear picture of the mid-level structure that exists between Khan, who appeared to be responsible for communications but not Al-Qaeda operations, and the group’s upper echelons.

The new evidence suggests that Al-Qaeda has retained some elements of its previous centralised command and communications structure, using computer experts like Khan to relay encrypted messages and directions from senior leaders to subordinates in countries like Britain, Turkey and Nigeria.

Experts also say the anti-terror fight is complicated by the emergence of many ’Al-Qaedas’, splinter groups that are mostly unrelated to each other but bound by the same hatred of the West - especially the United States and its allies, including Israel.

’It’s like McDonald’s giving out franchises,’ said Mr Dia’a Rashwan, an Egyptian expert on militant groups. ’All they have to do is follow the company’s manual. They don’t consult headquarters every time they want to produce a meal.’

A key conclusion in the Sept 11 commission report put out last month was that even though Al-Qaeda has been weakened, these imitator groups pose a ’catastrophic threat’ to the US. (AP)

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