Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian national living in Iran, is the new head of the Islamist terror group al-Qaida, according to the US State Department. Adel, 62, replaces al-Qaida emir Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was killed in a US rocket attack on a home where he was staying in Kabul in July 2022. A United Nations report release this week also assessed that Adel is now leading al-Qaida, though the UN says that the group has not formally declared him as leader because it is unwilling to acknowledge that Zawahiri was killed in the rocket attack.
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Adel is a former Egyptian special forces lieutenant-colonel who reportedly trained some of the hijackers who participated in the 9-11 attacks on US targets. He reportedly has been in Iran since 2002 or 2003. In addition, a US federal grand jury indicted and charged Adel in November 1998 for participating in the bomb attacks on US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya that killed 224 civilians and wounded more than 5,000 others. He reportedly once served as Osama bin Laden’s chief bodyguard. Adel has a $10 million US bounty on his head, as part of the State Department’s Rewards for Justice program.
His real name reportedly is Mohammed Salahuddin Zeidan.