Parsing tapes, some see a shift at Al Qaeda helm

WASHINGTON -- With no tapes from Osama bin Laden this year, some US and foreign intelligence officials suspect that his top deputy, the even more ideological Ayman al-Zawahri, has taken on a greater role as the spiritual and day-to-day leader of the Al Qaeda terror network.

''Zawahri, I think, over the past year has clearly been showing the world that if he is not number one that definitely he will be number one," said Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia's new ambassador to the United States and the country's former intelligence chief. ''Zawahri has taken over or there is competition between" him and bin Laden.

Bin Laden, the Saudi-born mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, has not been seen on video or audiotape since December 2004. Both bin Laden and Zawahri are believed to still be hiding in the mountainous border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan, intelligence officials said.

Bin Laden made nearly a dozen statements in 2002, about a half a dozen in 2003, and slightly fewer in 2004. He was last heard from in an audiotape made public on Dec. 28, 2004, according to a timeline provided by a US government official. The numbers are imprecise because authorities disagree on the total number of recordings; several messages are believed to come from the same taping.

Meanwhile, Zawahri has become an increasingly prolific and vocal spokesman for Al Qaeda followers worldwide. He has sent numerous taped messages and written correspondence, such as a videotape broadcast on an Islamic website this month and a letter intercepted this year from Zawahri to Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the top Al Qaeda lieutenant in Iraq.

His latest video message surfaced Sunday, imploring all Muslims to take up arms against ''the Cross and Zionism."

Some intelligence officials believe Zawahri ordered the London terror attacks on July 7, demonstrating that even while in hiding, Al Qaeda's leadership is capable of triggering attacks.

Zawahri appeared on a video last summer that also included a taped message from the lead bomber in the London attacks.

The bomber, Mohammed Khan, had visited Pakistan in late 2004 and may have met with Zawahri.

Turki, in his first interview with Washington reporters since taking his new post in September, said he sees evidence of a power struggle between the two terrorist allies.

The ambassador pointed to the most recent Zawahri video to support this assessment: Zawahri, in the message broadcast on the Al Jazeera Arab television network last Tuesday, stated that Al Qaeda ''is still, thanks to God, a base for jihad. Its prince Osama bin Laden, may God protect him, still leads the jihad."

But in assuring followers that bin Laden is still in charge, ''it seemed to me he did protest too much," said Turki. If bin Laden were fully in charge, Turki speculated, there would be no need to say so.

Rumors of bin Laden's death have circulated in recent months, with some claiming he was killed in the recent earthquake in Pakistan. But US counterterrorism officials, who speak less openly about what they believe to be the status of the world's most-wanted fugitive, said they believe bin Laden is alive.

If the Al Qaeda leader were to be killed or die of natural causes, many intelligence specialists say, there would be reverberations throughout radical Islamic networks and word would probably reach his family members in the Saudi Kingdom.

But assuming that bin Laden is alive, his silence could be attributed to many other motives than a ceding of power to Zawahri, or a power struggle with his second-in-command.

Bin Laden's silence has been ''longer than has been characteristic and it raises interesting questions why he hasn't been heard of for a long time," said one US terrorism official speaking under the condition of anonymity. He noted that it could be explained by the fact that bin Laden ''is lying low" to avoid capture and doesn't want to take the risk of making a new video.

As to theories that bin Laden and Zawahri may be odds, the official said, ''I would view that with a lot of skepticism. Those two go back a long way."

Indeed, the Saudi millionaire and the Egyptian doctor first met on the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier in 1986, when both were supporting the Afghan guerrillas against the Soviet Union.

Bin Laden was using his inherited fortune to finance radical causes, while Zawahri was leading a radical Islamic terrorist faction.

Zawahri had been among the more than 300 militants accused of aiding in the assassination of President Anwar Sadat of Egypt in 1981. Sentenced to three years in prison, he reportedly was tortured by the Egyptian government.

Bin Laden began funding Zawahri's activities in 1989, and the two eventually merged Al Qaeda and Zawahri's group, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, in June 2001. ''They have been joined at the hip for a very long time," said Peter Bergen, an Al Qaeda specialist who is one of the few Westerners to have met bin Laden.

Bergen and others say Zawahri has always been the more radical Islamic intellectual of the two and is widely believed to have steadily imparted the vision of global holy war to bin Laden.

Bin Laden ''never would have been what he is today if it had not been for Zawahri," said Evan Kohlmann, a counterterrorism consultant who maintains that it is Zawahri who sets priorities for Al Qaeda leadership.

Bin Laden is in the background to create a ''mystique" as a ''shadow warrior," Kohlmann said.

But as the silence from bin Laden continues, and Zawahri's public profile grows, others are beginning to theorize that bin Laden does not wield the kind of influence he once had.

Nearly everyone agrees, however, that the leadership network can still give orders and have them followed.

And the ability of both men to evade the largest manhunt in history is only fueling their followers.

''The longer they stay unpunished, uncaptured, undetected, the more aura of invincibility they acquire," said Turki.

Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com.