Inkwell Institute

Middle East Desk

Pres. Obama gave the order…the special ops people carried it out and Osama is very dead….and now it is official…last Friday, 06 May 2011 a post on a terrorists website has confirmed that Osama is dead….maybe now the hot air windbags will stop some of the conspiracy crap that has plagued the airwaves for the last 5 days…..The details of the raid are still news and that is ALL that the media is fixated on for now…Osama is confirmed dead and by an independent source,  let it go and move on!

What should be the big story is the leadership of AQ…that will determine the direction the organization will travel…instead of second guessing the facts maybe it would behoove you guys to start thinking about the next voice of the terror in the night….I can help! (not that you would pay any attention to a lowly blogger)……

There are a handful of AQ members that could possibly be interested in the leadership roll….but there are few that I feel would be capable…..

The most popular theory is that Osama’s second in command will step into the leadership roll, on, Ayman al-Zawahri…only because this is the only guy they know…the truth of the matter is…he is a divisive personality…he is arrogant and detached from the membership of the organization…..he lacks a charismatic personality or the skills to hold AQ together as a cohesive unit…..under his leadership AQ will most likely splinter and become much weaker and eventually will fade from the international stage to be a regional irritant….

There is Ilyas Kashmiri–Kashmiri was a top general in the Pak special forces and eventually turned on them and joined al Qaeda in 2002, helping to train Afghan Taliban fighters to attack Americans and NATO troops in Afghanistan, and then attacking his former ISI handlers and the army. He has been linked to the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto…..and has become an outspoken AQ operative…there are some that feel he has the cajones to challenge Zahawri to take control of AQ….

If I were a betting person…my money would be on American born, Anwar al-Awlaki….he is a firebrand cleric that is living in Yemen and is the leader of AQ on the Saudi peninsula…..I like him, if he lives, because he speaks Arabic and English fluently and could be a very successful PR tool, plus he knows what Americans think and feel, after all he is an American of Yemeni ancestry…his knowledge of the US will be invaluable to AQ if it is too survive the coming power plays……

There are some minor players that could make a play for leadership….Abdullah, al-Adel, Gadahn,  Abu Ghaith and El-Hoorie are the most likely candidates, but these do not have the cajones for leadership……

Make no mistake, a power war is coming to AQ and it will depend on who wins the struggle as to what direction the organization will travel…only time and special ops will determine if they last or not….

Addendum:  Perhaps the US government agrees with my assessment…..recently a drone was sent to target Al-Awlaki…it missed but did kill a couple of low level AQ operatives…..better luck next time…..