This guy had a $1 million reward on his head.
http://www.rewardsforjustice.net/index.cfm?page=abuyahya
Many Al Qaeda leaders have $5 million reward or more so how the heck can this guy be #2???
Rankings are complicated. #2 in AQ doesn’t even get you on the FBI most wanted list.
What the rewards show is the decline of AQ’s influence world-wide.
The jihadist movement is highly fractured, due to internal friction, geography (minimal cell phone use makes distance a factor), and a desire for survival.
Jihadists tend to organize around tasks, not charismatic leaders and they may go dormant for months or years between operations. So their reward value is often based on potential harm they may cause and their degree of trust and knowledge within a particular network.
Often we don’t know haw valuable a terrorist may be, we had al-libi for years before we knew his connection to bin Laden and only then after he escaped.
Most wanted terrorists are experts at identity switching and travel freely often taking over someone else’s identity with permission.
The muslim world has little identity documentation.