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Al-Zawahri 'al-Qaeda's real leader'
16:48 AEST Sat May 1 2004

AFP - A former Egyptian doctor-turned-practitioner of Islamic holy war has emerged as the hands-on operational leader of the al-Qaeda terror network, reducing Osama bin Laden to a figurehead role, a top US counter-terrorism official said.

Cofer Black, a former chief al-Qaeda hunter at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who now coordinates counter-terrorism activities at the State Department, warned that Ayman al-Zawahri, a man associated with radical Islamic causes since the 1960s, "tends to be more operational than Osama bin Laden".

"I think Zawahri represents more of a threat comparatively between the two men," Black told CNN television.

"Zawahri is certainly in the field and operating, has lines of communication to his subordinates and is planning attacks as we speak."

He described bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US as a "figurehead" leader increasingly out of touch with his followers.

"He's very defensive. He knows we're after him. And he spends most of his time hiding from us," Black said of bin Laden.

Warning that both men still were capable of mounting terrorist operations, Black called Zawahri "a significant threat" but pointedly refrained from giving the same characterisation to bin Laden.

He compared the al-Qaeda founder to ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein who had been hiding in an underground hole cut off from the outside world before US soldiers captured him last December.

As many as 70 per cent of al-Qaeda's leadership have been captured or killed as a result of the US-led war on terror launched in the aftermath of September 11 in Afghanistan and other parts of the world, according to US intelligence officials.

More than 3,400 of the group's lower-ranking operatives and supporters have also been detained or otherwise neutralised, these officials insist.

But a report on worldwide terrorism patterns released by the State Department acknowledged that al-Qaeda probably still has several thousand members and associates it can rely on.

Following the 2001 ouster of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and the closure of al-Qaeda's training camps in the country, "al-Qaeda has dispersed in small groups across South Asia, South-east Asia, and the Middle East and probably will attempt to carry out future attacks against US interests," the report warned.