Al-Qaeda has officially made its deputy-leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, its chief. Zawahiri is a divisive but deadly figure, commonly believed to be more important to Al-Qaeda operations than even Osama Bin Laden. This makes him America’s number one target, and it will be a struggle for him to manage the group’s vast networks while protecting his own life.

It took Al-Qaeda’s leadership six weeks to name Zawahiri as their commander. He has long been Bin Laden’s second-in-command, and so his appointment was expected to be an immediate development. This delay indicates the terrorist group’s top officials are having difficulty communicating, and may mean there is apprehension about Zawahiri. His new post will also force him to undertake stronger security measures that could result in isolation, causing fractures within Al-Qaeda.

“The question is whether Zawahiri…can hold these groups together in some kind of cohesive movement, or whether it begins to splinter, and they become essentially regional terrorist groups that are more focused on regional targets,” Defense Secretary Gates said.

Zawahiri is known to be a polarizing figure within Al-Qaeda, and does not have nearly the same respect as Bin Laden did. One extremist cleric with contacts in Al-Qaeda told TIME Magazine, “Nobody I met liked al-Zawahiri, but he is the guy moving things.” He also claimed that Zawahiri had been “isolating Bin Laden with the excuse of protecting him.”

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, director of the Center for the Study of Terrorist Radicalization at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told FrontPage that Zawahiri does face a problem in winning the confidence of the group’s ranks.

“The kind of reverence that jihadis who had met bin Laden display for him is not reflected in those who have met Zawahiri. Some terrorist analysts hope that this, in addition to the fact that Zawahiri is Egyptian rather than Saudi, means that some of al-Qaeda’s financiers will be less enthusiastic about giving money to the organization,” Garteinstein-Ross said.

A section of Al-Qaeda’s statement announcing Zawahiri’s ascension may be evidence that the group is seeking to improve ties with other Islamist forces. It also confirms the group’s commitment to instituting Sharia law, rather than just forcing changes in the foreign policy of the West.

“We offer our hands and open our hearts to cooperate with everyone working on supporting Islam…to support the Sharia so the Islamic homelands could be ruling, not ruled…and until every constitution and oppose it are invalidated,” it reads.

Daveed Garteinstein-Ross told FrontPage that he believes that Al-Qaeda’s top leaders will be focused on reconstituting their capabilities.

“In light of bin Laden’s death, we can expect the group’s central leadership to lay low and attempt to rebuild….Beginning in 2002, after the loss of al-Qaeda’s safe haven in Afghanistan, its leadership focused on regenerating in Pakistan while al-Qaeda affiliates stepped to the fore in terms of operational activity,” he explained. He predicted that this would cause some analysts to mistakenly underestimate the role of the central leadership.

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