The U.S. confirmed Tuesday that a drone strike in Pakistan a day earlier took out Al Qaeda’s charismatic second-in-command, Abu Yahya al-Libi.
The Libyan loudmouth specialized in religious doctrine and goading propaganda-not strategy or actual operations.
But his prominence and a rapidly shrinking talent pool bumped him into the number two slot when Navy SEALs killed Osama Bin Laden last May and forced Egyptian crank Ayman Al-Zawahiri to take Al Qaeda’s helm.
Al-Libi’s dogmatic credibility with jihadists and wannabes, combined with unparalleled charisma, made him the most dangerous man in core Al Qaeda, said terror scholar Jarret Brachman, a counterterrorism adviser to the U.S. government.
If Al-Libi is replaceable, no one currently stands out to do the job.
“There’s no one I would be able to name,” Brachman said. “It’s my guess it would have to be done by committee.”
A committee is increasingly hard to assemble for Al Qaeda, on the run from drone strikes that resumed this year after a disastrous friendly fire incident Nov. 25 that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
Al-Libi, believed to be about 49, was captured soon after the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, but escaped from an Afghan pris
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