Al Zawahiri on the run?

Recent reports may indicate that Al Zawahiri could be close to capture. This post is mostly speculation on my part, based on unconfirmed reports and hints in media reports.

Just throwing this out there for fun, and to see if anyone else picked up on this.

July 4th - Communications liason between Al Qaeda in Iraq and Al Zawahiri captured. Kept secret for 2 weeks while being interrogated. Did he give up some information on the location of Al Zawahiri?

July 11 - Al Zawahiri video condeming the red mosque stand off. This is noteable because the video took less than a week to air. These normally take a month or more. This could be an indication of Al Zawahihi's location.

July 15 - A letter from Al Zawahiri found in red mosque. An intelligence bonanza? This letter may have had some indication of his location. Related ATS thread.

July 16 - Unconfirmed reports that Al Zawahiri was almost captured in Bannu Pakistan.

July 17 - US news briefing. Homeland Security Advisor Francis Townsend hints about Pakistan - U.S. ops against AQ in Pakistan.

July 18 - Reports of attack on a large Pakistan military convoy traveling to Bannu Pakistan.

Map of Bannu Pakistan area.


[edit on 7/18/07 by makeitso]

There were some key players in the Red Mosque I believe. Hopefully they are still interogating those that came out alive.

If I were hiding, I would hide somewhere protected along the Afghan/Pakistan border. That is his strongest support network. Trying to make it to Syria is also an option.

I believe he is on the run as a result of the Red Mosque incident. I just have a feeling that there were some there that might know his whereabouts. Most likely, Maulana Abdul Aziz who was captured and his brother Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the mosque's senior cleric who remains inside. I have no facts to back that up, just opinion.

I have heard that there were between 5 - 7 "foreigners" in the mosque.

It would be great to have some more info on them.

Anyone seen any?

Ok, I've been holding off writing more on this thread, waiting for more activity or news.

Since I first wrote this, the town that al Zawahiri was supposedly almost captured in, (Bannu, Pakistan), came under rocket fire from unknown persons shortly after the report. The rockets hit a police station, a mosque, and a house, killing 14, and injuring 45.

Is this reprisal for chasing or possibly capturing al zawahiri?

Shortly afterward there were reports that villagers were fleeing parts of Waziristan on rumors that Pakistan was about to start attacks on al qadea cells.

About the same time, several reports leaked out that the U.S. has given Pakistan a specific list of 9 al qaeda training sites to destroy, and that they were quietly being attacked by both Pak and U.S. forces.

Now a new al qaeda video has been released, but al zawahiri is not to be found in it. His underling Abu Yahya al Libi is the one giving the talking points, the main point seem to be the overthrow Pakistan. It's not al Libi's first video, but it is unusual IMO that al Libi seems to be in charge of the call to overthrow Pakistan.

This is starting to lead to speculation that the video is a call to al qaeda members that they should pull out of Iraq (partially), and focus their forces mostly on Pakistan. Possibly because they are in deep doo doo there.

These circumstances further lead me to ask, where is al Zawahiri? Was he captured? Was he almost captured, and had to go to ground?

Just speculating here, but I guess time will tell.

God Help us if Al' Queda overthrows Pakistan!

Yep!! Because if they do....well there goes Pakistan.

Still speculating here.

Al Zawahiri was putting out video and audio pretty regularly. But his last went online only a week after the event he talked about. (Red Mosque).

After that there were some of the reports I listed above that made me suspect that last tape enabled him to be closed in on.

Now there is nothing from him for quite awhile, and we have these 2 new crappy bin laadin videos that almost certainly are compilations of older video instead.

I think they either got so close Al Zawahiri had to leave the area, or they got him.

Guess we'll have to wait and see if he puts another video out.

More speculation.

I started this thread almost 6 months ago. Al Zawahiri hasn't poked his head up much since then. The last video tape he was in was distributed Nov. 3rd.

Neal Krawetz did an analysis of that tape, and it seems pretty clear that the voice of Al Zawahiri is a fake.

So, more than ever, it seems clear that recently he disappeared, and nobody has really heard from him since the red mosque tape.

Another thing I noticed from that same mid-'07 timeframe is that his former mentor/boss announced the upcoming release of a book that reverses the stand he took in a previous book, originally advocating violent Jihad. In fact, the original book is considered the Jihadist how to manual. The announcement of the new book made quite a splash back then, and Al Zawahiri is reported to have written a rebuttal of his former mentors new book at that time, but has since been absent. Certainly after the red mosque tape he disappeared.

It’s also notable that around the time of the reported sighting in Bannu, U.S. and Paki attacks began repeatedly bombing an area near Bannu, called Miran Shah on the Afghan/Paki border. During this timeframe not only has Al Zawahiri disappeared, but also Adam Gadahn.

Adam's disappearance brings up questions that a lot of the anti-jihad sites are talking about. They say that about the time Adam and Al Zawahiri disappeared, the quality of the AQ audio and video tapes went straight downhill. The latest audio and video seem amateur by comparison. There is quite a bit of speculation now that Adam, aka “Azzam The American” had been in charge of writing the AQ speech’s for a long time now, and his absence is evident in both the quality of speachs, and quality of video in the latest AQ audio and video tapes.

Time will tell.



[edit on 12/2/07 by makeitso]

Ah ha,

al Zawahiri finally surfaced today in a new message disussing the Annapolis conference held on Nov. 27th. Thats a time lag of about 3 weeks.

The video consists of a single still image with 20 minutes of audio.
It remains to be seen if the audio analysis is consistant with know soundbites from him.





As usual you can download the original 49.4 MG rar file at multiple locations.

OP are you trying to say that Adam Kahdan and Al-Zawhiri were killed in the Tribal Regions of Pakistan or both captured and we are waiting for a Chistmas present with both of them served up

I wouldnt mind waking up to another Main Dead Terrorists face on my TV

Great thread, makeitso, starred and flagged! You've done some fine work eyeballing Al Zawahiri from July to present.
I thought I heard ...must of been around July...that Adam was captured. I could very well be wrong, you have a better idea of the chase than I, but, I swear I remember that.

Watching this one.

Cuhail

reply to post by KonigKaos


Nah, I'm just speculating and watching.
_____________________________________________________________

reply to post by Cuhail


Thanks Cuhail.
Holy cow. I'm suprised anyone is following this in the Skunk Works forum. Wait. Didn't I post this in Skunk works ? Oh well, I must be loosing it.

Anyway, as far as I'm aware Adam has not been located yet. The scuttlebutt is that Adam just disappeared one day. He is considered the AQ media advisor and the video quality was "live motion", with good english subtitles. Lately though they are simple still images, without english subtitles, and with apparently fake audio. Thats why people think something happened to him recently.

______________________________________________________________

That brings me to new updates, one of which appears, (on the surface), to conflict with the information I've posted about Adam and al-Zawahiri.

1. I've received private confirmation that the audio analysis of the (Dec. 14t) still-shot video disussing the Annapolis conference of November, has the same analysis results as the previous audio. It appears to be faked. No shock there. I'll post a link when the results have been published.

2. A new al Zawahiri video has been released today (Dec. 16). Its longer, (97-minutes ) and contains english subtitles. Full analysis has not been performed that I'm aware of, but Reuters, and others have published some excerpts. Copies of the video are located on multiple servers as usual.



These 2 new reports conflict because the previous couple of audios appear fake, but articles about this latest video indicate it may be "live motion", and does have english subtitles. So, maybe Zawahiri and Adam are alive and well.

Much of the determination will depend on:
How well the live motion and audio mesh together.
If the speach consists of computer generated and older bits of audio spliced.
If its discovered the footage is old unreleased film, with fake audio dubbed over it, like OBL's last few.
If the events discussed are recent.

Unfortunatly, at 97 minutes, a detailed analysis may take some time.



[edit on 12/17/07 by makeitso]

Sadly I'm getting feedback that a brief review indicates it really is Zawahiri in the new 97 minute video. If a detailed analysis agrees, it seems he may be alive and his running is over for now.

This is with the the caveat that the issues he is addressing are from September. (The Petraeus-Crocker report). He also calls out AlJazeera for the way it posted excerpts of the Oct. 25th OBL speach. He also calls on Ansar Al-Sunnah, but they changed their name (pdf) Nov. 28th.

He seems comfortable enough where he is now that he's calling for questions to be posted, which he will sent to him next month for him to answer. A kind of AQ townhall meeting I suppose.

So, where could he get that comfortable?

He's denounced Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Egypt.

Perhaps Yemen?


[edit on 12/17/07 by makeitso]

Just a quick follow up on my comment quoted below:

1. I've received private confirmation that the audio analysis of the (Dec. 14t) still-shot video disussing the Annapolis conference of November, has the same analysis results as the previous audio. It appears to be faked. No shock there. I'll post a link when the results have been published.

I promised to post a link, so heres the first one. While the full analysis results have not been published yet, Dr. Krawetz did confirm that the audio in Zawahari's recently released speaches are faked. Below is an excerpt from yesterdays post on his blog.

Zawahiri appears in three recent videos (2007-11-03, 2007-12-14, and 2007-12-16). The first two are not his voice; using multiple profiling points, none match Zawahiri. However, the third one is him.

Its expected that he will release the full analysis of the Dec. 14th and Dec. 16th video at the Black Hat Conference on Feb. 20, 2008





[edit on 12/28/07 by makeitso]

Now Adam has resurfaced also.

"An invitation to reflection and repentance"


Interesting that its not spelled correctly, since he speaks english.

I wonder if it will be a still-shot image with audio.

[edit on 1/3/08 by makeitso]

In the last 3 weeks AQ has released 3 new videos.

That may have cost them... big time.

Unconfirmed Reports from "credible sources" say that Dr. Amin al Haq, OBL's personal security coordinator, got busted in Lahore, Pakistan a couple days ago.

He is reported to be under interrogation at an undisclosed location.

Additional Info: By Bill Roggio


[edit on 1/7/08 by makeitso]

I though I was done with this thread since Adam and al Zawahiri popped up in their newest videos. Thats why I didn't report a recent news release that al Zawahiri was being chased and close to capture for almost 30 days during the timeperiod I was posting to this thread.

However, a new rumor just surfaced and I can't resist posting it.

It seems that the airstrike that recently killed al Libi may have also killed...

wait for it...


Adam Gadahn

According to sources, American officials who are yet to publicly confirm the killing of Abu Laith al-Libi, had reportedly sharing information with western media that most likely another most wanted figure, Adam Gadahn, has also been killed in the air strike by the CIA-operated unmanned drone on a house in Khushali Torikhel village near Mirali town.

According to sources, the American al-Qaeda militant, who has been reportedly spending much of his time in Afghanistan and Pakistani tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, had reached Mirali for an important meeting with other senior al-Qaeda commanders for planning the so-called spring offensive against US and Nato troops in Afghanistan.

Its too soon to know for sure, but if it's true a lot of people are going to be doing a

Happy Dance!!!




[edit on 2/7/08 by makeitso]

That would be some serious news if true, thanks you so much for keeping up with this series of events

The other theory is plausible as well, that they announced AG's death to try and flush him out of his hiding place.

It will be interesting to see how this all unfolds.

al Zawahiri released a new video today.

It does have english subtitles. It is live video.
It doesn't seem to special though. He's just upset about al-liby's death. He doesn't answer all those questions he promised to a couple months agot.

It's on googlevideo.

Lament commander martyr / Abu Zuhri Libyan - accepted by God --
Sheikh / Ayman al-Zawahiri -





[edit on 2/27/08 by makeitso]

[edit on 2/27/08 by makeitso]

This has to be the best thread on ATS, in my opinion.

It's interesting to note those faked videos. Why, you might ask?

I would put forward it's because Al Qaeda has only ever had two decent speakers- OBL and Al Zawahiri. Also, because a significant chunk of AQ's membership is Egyptian (or it used to be), I would also say that this is an attempt to keep the support of the EJ in Egypt.