New Delhi: The precariously-timed video released by al-Qaeda showing Osama bin Laden has sent intelligence officials in a frenzy. Now the latest intelligence reports from UK and US indicate that Osama bin Laden has been sidelined by his followers in the outfit.
The report that appeared in The Sunday Telegraph says bin Laden has no longer any control over the al-Qaeda terror network and that his deputy Ayman a-Zawahiri has seized power.
The report also says that al-Zawahiri has made al-Qaeda into an organisation capable of launching complex attacks in Britain and America.
According to them, bin Laden has not chaired a meeting of al-Qaeda's ruling shura or council in more than two years.
"The guys on the subs' bench are now in the first XI. They have stopped using mobile phones to talk to each other, which has made it more difficult to find them," a former British intelligence officer was quoted by news agencies as saying.
Both British and American intelligence officials said that a network of terrorist cells, funded, controlled and supported by al-Qaeda's central command, based in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan, was in place again.
In fact, al-Zawahiri's task has been made easier as not a single prominent al-Qaeda leader has been captured since March 2006, nearly 18 months ago, according to them.
Citing information gathered by Pakistani intelligence, Bruce Hoffman, a member of the US Military Academy's Combating Terrorism Centre, told the newspaper: "Bin Laden is the brand name but al-Zawahiri is the grand-strategist.
"He has taken control of al-Qaeda. Despite the new video (released this month), bin Laden has ceased to be a major force in decision-making and propaganda effort."
(With PTI inputs)
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