Heightened alert over reprisal attacks

With the death of Osama bin Laden, there is a growing expectation of revenge attacks against the United States and its interests, and growing questions about its new leadership.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian former doctor and long-recognized right-hand man to bin Laden, is presumed to be the likely successor to the al Qaeda leadership.

The Wall Street Journal’s online branch, wsj.com reports that the 59-year-old al-Zawahiri, a jihadi since the age of 15, was co-founder  of al Qaeda with Osama bin Laden, and is the author to the terror group’s 1998 fatwa against the United States. Since the founding of al Qaeda, al-Zawahiri has been its ideological and operational head, and is considered to be far more radical than bin Laden, but faces unexpected challenges, including keeping al Qaeda relevant at a time of upheaval in the Muslim world that others are leading.

According to the wsj.com report, a senior U.S. intelligence official said it is unclear whether al-Zawahiri will actually take over as the leader of al Qaeda. The official is quoted by the web service as saying that “Zawahiri is clearly less popular than bin Laden was among the rank and file,” adding that “He may be the presumed successor, but it’s unknown what the group’s ultimate decision may be.”

The widespread belief is that, given the challenges of responding to bin Laden’s killing, along with an apparent drop in relevancy of the terror organization, al-Zawahiri will sense pressure to accelerate whatever plans may currently be in the hopper.

This is a sentiment echoed outside the intelligence community as well.

Writing in the Bermuda Sun, Simon Jones reports on the reaction of Pauline O’Connor, whose brother, Boyd Gatton, was among those killed when the World Trade Center towers collapsed 11 September , 2001.

For many of the surviving family members of that day, there has been no joy in Osama bin Laden’s killing, and a growing fear that revenge will be taken. She and others expect a rash of attacks, though not on the scale of 9-11.

The Global Post website reports that the reprisals may have already begun. Yesterday, a bombing attack in a café in a Shia neighborhood in Baghdad killed a total of sixteen. Though no group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, speculation is that it is a revenge action.

Care must be taken to not assign the motivation for every attack as revenge for bin Laden’s death, though it would benefit al-Zawahiri’s image of decisiveness to do so.

Speculation abounds of others who might replace al-Zawahiri at the helm. Writing for msnbc.com, Robert Windrem reports that among possible contenders for the al Qaeda throne is Anwar al-Awlaki, the American radical cleric now believed to be living in Yemen.