Analysis: Thai army takes sides as divisive election nears (Reuters)

BANGKOK (Reuters) – After Thailand's military removed her brother in a bloodless coup on a hot September night five years ago, the front-runner in next month's closely fought election has good reason to fear the generals will go after her.

Recent rumblings from the army suggest she should be concerned.

As Yingluck Shinawatra, sister of ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, surges ahead in the race to become Thailand's next prime minister after elections next month, the army has cast aside its neutrality, analysts say, and looks intent on derailing her. How far they will go is unclear.

If she prevails over Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's ruling Democrat Party and forms a government, a coup is one option, though an unlikely one due to the risk of drawing tens of thousands of Thaksin's "red shirt" supporters into the streets in a reprise of last year's bloody clashes with troops.

Most analysts and diplomats suggest she may cut a deal with the army to preserve her government and to prevent a new round of street riots.

But in the days leading up to the July 3 election, the army is doing what it can to stop her momentum and foil her plans for a general amnesty that would clear the way for Thaksin to return from self-exile in Dubai, where he lives to avoid prison following a graft conviction he says was politically motivated.

Army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha, instrumental in the coup that toppled Thaksin and offensives to crush anti-government red-shirt street insurrections in 2009 and 2010, made a stern-faced address on two army-owned television channels last week, stressing the military would not meddle in the election.

But his message had the opposite effect.

Prayuth warned of threats against Thailand's monarchy and urged the public to vote for "good people" and to avoid a repeat of previous polls, a not-so-subtle reference to a decade of elections won by Thaksin allies.

"If you allow the election results to be the same as before, you will not get anything new and you will not see any improvement," Prayuth said.

By wading into the political fray, the army risks inflaming a sometimes-violent, five-year political crisis in which the rural and urban poor red shirts are pitted against a traditional elite of generals, royal advisers, middle-class bureaucrats and old-money families who back the ruling Democrats.

Prayuth's comments were widely seen as a move to discredit Yingluck's Puea Thai Party and stem its momentum following opinion polls that show it is likely to win the most votes in the election.

"For an army chief to plead with the voters to cast their ballots for 'good' parties and 'good' candidates is very inappropriate and, as such, he can be seen as taking sides in the upcoming election," Veera Prateepchaikul, a former editor of The Bangkok Post, wrote in the daily on Monday.

A HISTORY OF COUPS

The army has been a major force in politics since Thailand became a democracy in 1932, staging 18 coups -- some successful, some not -- and several discreet interventions in forming coalition governments, almost all with the tacit backing of Thailand's royalist establishment.

Since the last coup, the military's budget has nearly doubled and it has stood firm behind Abhisit, aiding his rise to power in a 2008 parliamentary vote and battling with pro-Thaksin red shirt demonstrators. The last face-off in April and May last year killed 91 people and wounded at least 1,800.

"The general image of the military has not exactly complemented Thailand's democratic process," said Worajet Phakhirat, a law professor at Bangkok's Thammasat University. "Making these comments so close to the election can have a negative reaction."

Kan Yuenyong, an analyst at the Siam Intelligence Unit, said the stakes are high for the military, which faces a possible purge if Yingluck becomes premier and remains influenced by Thaksin, who may seek a military reshuffle in revenge for his ouster.

"A coup is the worst-case scenario but that can't be ruled out if Thaksin regains power," he said. "The military has learned from the past and knows Thaksin will want his revenge."

Since Yingluck's May 16 nomination, the 43-year-old businesswoman has championed Thaksin's populist legacy and energised his urban and rural working class supporters, who elected his now-defunct Thai Rak Thai Party twice in landslides in 2001 and 2005.

Yingluck says she will pursue reconciliation if she becomes prime minister, vowing not to interfere with the armed forces.

But not everyone is convinced. Mistrust of Thaksin runs deep and her assurances are unlikely to be enough.

TALK OF A DEAL WITH THE ARMY

Some expect the generals to intervene discreetly to prevent Puea Thai from forming a government if, as many expect, it wins the most seats in parliament but falls short of an outright majority and must form a coalition to govern.

That's where the army could wield its influence by trying to persuade smaller parties to shun Puea Thai and side with Abhisit's Democrats.

That may not work. If Puea Thai wins by a landslide, or wins comfortably, it could govern with just one medium-sized party in a coalition.

A tougher step, such as a coup, is difficult. The red shirts are far stronger and more organised than in 2006 when the generals removed Thaksin. If tanks rumbled into Bangkok, thousands would likely flood the city's streets in protest.

"Another coup is an option Prayuth doesn't want to take because more red shirts than ever before would come to shut down Bangkok," said an analyst with close knowledge of the military who requested anonymity.

"But a coup becomes likely if Prayuth gets word of a planned purge by a Puea Thai government. There might be no other option."

Sources close to Puea Thai and the military say that could be averted, and that Thaksin and the generals are discussing an arrangement under which Puea Thai could govern in return for an assurance the top brass would not be purged.

Abhisit told Reuters last week he was aware the military had been approached by Puea Thai with a view to a deal.

Thaksin declined to comment on any such arrangement, but conceded in an interview with Reuters in Dubai last Wednesday that his return to Thailand hinged on talks with the military.

Anthony Davis, a security analyst with IHS-Jane's, said a deal was almost inevitable if Puea Thai won handsomely.

But in return, he said, Puea Thai would have to scrap its plans for an amnesty to allow Thaksin's return, appoint a defense minister sensitive to the army leadership and guarantee the party would not get involved in the military's affairs.

(Additional reporting by Vithoon Amorn; Editing by Jason Szep and John Chalmers)

Yahoo! News

Analysis: Yemen crisis puts Saudi in powerbroker's bind (Reuters)

DUBAI (Reuters) – Fearing both civil war and sweeping political reform as results of the crisis in Yemen, Saudi Arabia is struggling with its role as regional kingmaker.

While publicly backing Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, still in a Saudi hospital after being wounded in fighting in the capital Sanaa after months of protests aimed at ousting him, Riyadh has also tried to broker a succession on its own terms.

That has entailed forging relationships with tribal chieftains, politicians and army officers long cultivated by the Saudis as counterweights to Saleh's 33-year rule, but they are too many and too fractious to provide a ready-made successor.

And the very process of negotiating a political exit for a neighboring ruler it no longer supports has raised talk of representative government, feared by the kingdom that is the world's top oil exporter.

"It (Saudi Arabia) will try to stop a move to any real democratic system in the country," political analyst Ahmed al-Zurqa said. "This is the problem."

The Saudi-dominated Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) mediated three aborted deals with Yemeni opposition parties under which Saleh would step down and be spared prosecution for misconduct including bloody crackdowns on protesters who took to the streets as pro-democracy activism swept the Arab world.

Each time, Saleh backed out at the last minute.

His last demurral, in May, triggered two weeks of fighting with the al-Hashed tribal confederation led by the al-Ahmar family, culminating in a June 3 attack on Saleh's palace.

That may have sealed Saleh's fate for the Saudis, said Sheila Carapico, a Yemen expert and political science professor at the American University of Cairo.

"We don't even know if he'll be well enough to go back (from Saudi Arabia), but apart from that, I think they've lost faith in him," she said.

SON, NEPHEWS NOT JUMPING SHIP

Saudi and Yemeni state media still stress Riyadh's relationship with Saleh. Wary that Yemen could slip into further chaos, Saudi Arabia has begun shipments of a grant of 3 million barrels of oil to alleviate fuel shortages now gripping Yemen.

At the same time, flirtation with his enemies is evident.

Sadeq al-Ahmar, a leading al-Hashed figure, said after a round of clashes which devastated parts of the capital that he was keeping a truce only out of respect for Saudi King Abdullah.

Opposition parties ranging from socialists to Islamists of both the Sunni and Zaydi Shi'ite sects, and which signed off on the GCC deals, lost credibility with "Arab Spring"-inspired youths who have emerged as a separate Yemeni constituency.

"We believed, and still believe, that the Gulf states do not want the youth revolution to succeed in Yemen, so that its effects won't spread to the other states of the region," said democracy activist Omar Abdelqader.

The opposition parties have participated in negotiations with Yemen's acting leader, Vice President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, in which the absent president's fate was not broached.

U.S. diplomats helped broker those talks. But with Washington apparently preparing to pursue attacks on al Qaeda in Yemen with more use of CIA-operated drones, analysts believe it may have satisfied its needs in Yemen, and will leave kingmaking to the Saudis.

"I don't think the U.S. has a policy on Yemen," Carapico said. "One part is we back the Saudis and whatever they want is good enough for us, and then the other part of it is we really, really don't like al Qaeda."

The balance of forces on the ground suggests no single contender will simplify the task of succession by emerging stronger than the others.

Though Saleh's ruling party suffered high-profile defections, several of his relatives -- including a son, Brigadier-General Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, who leads the Republican Guard -- retain command and seem to have achieved military parity with the president's enemies.

"I don't think you're going to see many more people jumping ship at the moment," said James Spencer, a defense and political risk consultant. "Saleh's son and nephews have hung on ... Ahmed Ali has made it clear he's not going to go meekly."

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Ghobari in Sanaa, Andrew Hammond and Isabel Coles in Dubai; Editing by Dan Williams)

Yahoo! News

Analysis: S.Korea's smartphone love affair lures foreign suitors (Reuters)

SEOUL (Reuters) – The proliferation of smartphones in South Korea is transforming this former "walled garden" ruled by local players into one of Asia's most promising destinations for global Internet and social networking firms.

A solid, wireless broadband infrastructure, feature-packed new models from homegrown giants Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, and an explosion in mobile applications and services have all contributed to the breakneck speed of smartphone adoption.

In just 18 months the number of smartphone subscribers in South Korea has exploded more than ten-fold to top 10 million, or around a fifth of the population, according to the Korea Communications Commission (KCC).

South Korea ranks first in Asia and third globally in smartphone penetration, according to eMarketer, lagging only the United States and Western Europe.

All this is music to the ears of handset makers and application developers.

"Korea is interesting because it's got a large, tech-savvy and concentrated population," said Andrew Mason, founder and CEO of group-buying site Groupon, which launched services in Korea in March. "It's the perfect market for Groupon."

Smartphones have become a "Trojan horse into the Korean market" for the likes of Google and Facebook, which had a head start on local firms in optimizing their offerings for smartphones, said Richard Min, partner at Seoul-based startup incubator, Seoul Space.

Foreign entrants have moved quickly to capitalize on the changing landscape. Twitter launched a Korean-language website in January after seeing a 3,400 percent spike in the volume of Korean tweets in 2010. It now has around 3 million local users, according to market research firm, Daumsoft.

Facebook opened a Seoul office late last year to seize on the "great momentum" in Korea, a company spokesperson said.

And Groupon Korea already ranks among the top four players in South Korea's increasingly crowded social commerce market, with a growth rate that is "accelerating every week," said local CEO, Hee Seung Hwang.

GOOGLE'S CHANGING FORTUNES

Arguably the biggest beneficiary of Korea's smartphone explosion has been Google, whose previous attempts to woo local Internet users were disappointing. As of March 2011 it held a mere 2 percent sliver of the standard Internet search market, according to Seoul-based research house, Metrix Corp.

But Metrix estimates Google now vies with Korea's Daum Communications for second place in the mobile Internet search market, with a share of more than 15 percent.

Google's Android operating system, on which Samsung and LG's latest smartphone offerings are based, powered only 3 percent of South Korea's mobile phones in March 2010. That figure jumped to 60 percent by January 2011, KCC data shows.

The onslaught of imported competition has rattled local Internet industry leaders Daum, NHN, and SK Communications, whose domestic and PC-based focus may now be coming back to haunt them.

"Without a major shift, (Korean Internet firms) are in trouble," says Min of Seoul Space. "Their biggest problem used to be their biggest asset -- they built these perfect local systems. But these days Koreans are more international and if they want to reach a global audience there is no contest."

NHN's shares have declined 17 percent so far this year, versus a 0.5 percent gain in the benchmark KOSPI, and Kosdaq-listed SK Communications is down 41 percent compared to the venture market's 7 percent fall. Daum, also listed on the Kosdaq, is a notable outperformer, up 30 percent.

NHN continues to dominate the Korean Internet, with some 75 percent of standard searches conducted via its Naver portal. Its Me2Day microblogging service boasts over 5 million users, well ahead of Twitter. But Metrix data shows the number of visitors to Twitter grew six times faster in 2010.

SK Communications' most iconic product, the Cyworld social networking service, pulled the plug in 2009 on an effort to crack the U.S. market and now appears increasingly threatened by Facebook on its home turf.

SK Communications says Cyworld has 35 million users in South Korea, around 10 times more than Facebook, but its visitor numbers barely budged last year while Facebook's shot up more than 3,000 percent.

INCUMBENTS FIGHT BACK

Korean firms acknowledge that foreign competitors are making inroads, but also say they are taking steps in response.

"(Foreign companies) are strengthening their position in the domestic mobile content market with relatively high brand awareness," says Lee Ram, director of NHN's Portal Strategy Department.

But Naver's introduction of new services such as mobile messaging and web storage has resulted in a "number of users moving from Google to Naver," Lee added.

Daum has developed new mobile applications such as the Yozm social networking service, which has already signed up more than 2 million users, according to Daum vice president of corporate communications Lee Byung-sun.

SK Comms, meanwhile, is banking on an online marketplace for new games and applications, said CFO Koo Ki-hyang.

The struggle for Korea's Internet users has spilled into the legal arena. In April Daum and NHN filed a lawsuit against Google with Korea's Fair Trade Commission, arguing the pre-installation of Google Search on Android phones was stifling competition.

Google rejected the allegations.

"Android is an open platform...we do not require carriers or manufacturers to include Google Search on Android-powered devices," a spokesperson said.

Few seem ready to count Korea's incumbents out. The healthy performance of home-grown applications like instant messaging service KakaoTalk point to a deep local pool of innovation and the market remains tricky to navigate.

"(Korea) is still very closed," said David Lee, a former director at Google and now a partner at Palo Alto-based venture capital firm XG Ventures. "If you want to publish a game, you have to go through the game ratings bureau. Payment gateways are difficult...the challenge for overseas developers is to get through those hoops."

For those that do, the Korea experience is likely to inform their strategies in other markets with rapid smartphone uptake and a strong stable of local players, such as Japan and China.

Groupon's Mason says the firm is in a "learning phase" in Asia and that South Korea is serving as a test-bed for technologies such as SMS distribution, while Google sees South Korea as demonstrating "where the rest of Asia is going as well."

But others note China is very different and not just because of censorship.

China's Baidu and Sina have "taken the best of Twitter, Facebook and so on and put them all together...adding a lot of innovations that have drawn a ton of Chinese users," said Mike Clendenin, managing director of Shanghai-based RedTech Advisors.

"I'm not convinced (foreign social networking services) would do well in China even if they were unblocked."

(Additional Reporting by Seongbin Kang, Taeyi Kim and Jungyoun Park in SEOUL: Editing by Matt Driskill)

Yahoo! News

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Analysis: Reimagining Obama after gutsy raid

WASHINGTON (AP) — It was just a firehouse chat with the guys of Engine 54 in lower Manhattan. But President Barack Obama delivered a message he hopes will also hit home with every American in this week of national catharsis: "You're always going to have a president and an administration who's got your back."

President Barack Obama addresses military personnel who have recently returned from Afghanistan on Friday at Fort Campbell, Ky.

In the denouement to the daring raid that brought down Osama bin Laden, the president has in effect been reintroduced to the nation.

While taking care to strike the right tone — trying to savor the success of the dramatic covert operation without appearing to gloat — Obama has offered himself as a decisive leader willing to take bold risks.

He's gotten a bump in the polls that isn't likely to last. But Americans may well come away with altered perceptions of a president whose strongest personal qualities in past polls have run to squishier traits like being a good communicator and friendly.

"It sheds a new light on him," says pollster Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center. "What happened here may improve impressions that he is a strong and forceful leader, and that's the enduring potential benefit."

Obama's understated victory lap — not that he would ever call it that — continued on Friday in Kentucky, where he met privately at Fort Campbell with participants in the assault on bin Laden's Pakistani hideaway and in public with U.S. troops returning from Afghanistan. "Job well done," the president declared.

The president has been careful to shower credit and praise for the successful raid on the U.S. military and the nation's intelligence and counterterrorism apparatus, and to frame this as a time for Americans to set aside politics and conjure the unity that the nation felt after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

But it is inescapable that he is not only a president. He also is a candidate for re-election. And the successful raid can only do him good politically.

Contrast the competing images of Obama at New York's ground zero on Thursday, meeting with first responders and families of those lost in the terror attacks, with those from Greenville, S.C., where the first debate of GOP presidential contenders played out Thursday night. The event attracted a field of relative unknowns lacking in foreign policy experience.

For now, even Obama's political opponents are willing to give him his due.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a GOP presidential hopeful who declined to participate in the South Carolina debate, gave no-strings-attached credit to the president, the military and the intelligence community earlier in the week, calling it "a great victory for lovers of freedom and justice everywhere."

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who has never shied from criticism of the Obama administration, also offered up credit to the president and his national security team. But he coupled it with a reminder that each president has built upon the work of his predecessor.

"We picked up on items that had been collected during the Clinton administration and worked those aggressively for eight years," Cheney said in a TV interview after the raid. "We passed that on to the Obama administration. They picked it up and they've been working it."

Fair or not, though, the credit for a blockbuster achievement like the demise of bin Laden goes to the sitting president.

With all that could have gone wrong, the risky mission could well have ended in unmitigated disaster. And, in that case, it would have been blame that was assigned to the sitting president.

Former President Jimmy Carter knows about that.

In 1980, Carter approved a plan to rescue the American hostages in Iran that ended in failure and left eight American servicemen dead. The botched mission was cited as one factor in Carter's defeat when he ran for re-election.

In an interview with CNN, Carter recalled the failed rescue as a heartbreaking event and expressed hope that Obama would benefit from the successful hunt for bin Laden.

"I believe this has substantially enhanced his political standing — his reputation among people, particularly those that didn't think he was a strong, competent person who could carry out a mission successfully," the former president said.

Carter's comments hinted at the president's political vulnerability on questions of leadership.

In a January survey by Pew, Obama got his highest marks for personal traits such as good communicator (75 percent), warm and friendly (70 percent), and "stands up for what he believes in" (77 percent). By contrast, 54 percent of those surveyed saw him as "able to get things done" and 53 percent viewed him as a "strong leader."

Polls also show that Obama's personal approval ratings have suffered amid public impatience with the ongoing wars and dissatisfaction with the state of the economy.

Just a day before the bin Laden raid, Obama joked that his dismal poll numbers gave him "a really great self-help tool" for overcoming arrogance.

Early in his presidency, George W. Bush found his voice in the rubble of the twin towers at the World Trade Center, when he spoke to workers there through a bullhorn just days after the attacks and told them: "I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people — the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!"

Bush's approval ratings soared after 9/11. But as time passed, and the nation became bogged down in two unpopular wars, that support evaporated.

Well into his presidency, Obama is being re-evaluated in light of the bin Laden raid and his measured handling of what his spokesman calls "this significant and cathartic moment" for the nation.

The president talks of demonstrating to the world "who we are" by the way the U.S. has managed the raid and its aftermath.

Privately, Obama has to hope that people will come away with a better sense of who he is, too.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. Changes include a brief review of the moderation process and an explanation on how to use the "Report Abuse" button. Read more.

USATODAY.com

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Analysis: Who will succeed bin Laden?

Ayman al-Zawahiri is the most likely successor to bin Laden, but he lacks his charismaSome Saudi and Yemeni members may refuse to swear allegiance to an EgyptianBut al-Zawahiri has a reputation for strategic cunning and visionHe is likely to face a difficult choice in selecting a deputy

(CNN) -- A statement from al Qaeda on Friday marking the death of Osama bin Laden included renewed warnings of terrorist attacks against U.S. interests around the world and suggested that a process to choose his successor is already under way.

"Sheikh Osama didn't build an organization to die when he dies," the message said. It was posted on several jihadist forums known for carrying al Qaeda statements.

The man taking over will most likely be Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian who was al Qaeda's number two under bin Laden.

The bylaws of al Qaeda, recovered by the U.S. military in Afghanistan after 9/11, set out clear guidelines on the replacement of bin Laden, requiring the Command, or Shura, Council of al Qaeda to "pledge allegiance to the Deputy Emir and elect him as Emir in the event that the Emir dies or is captured and there is no hope for his liberation."

It would be risky for al Qaeda's on-the-run leadership to assemble a meeting of its Shura Council. They may therefore choose to shortcut some of the required proceedings.

Analysts expect al Qaeda may choose to announce the elevation of al-Zawahiri through a written statement to avoid having him take the security risk of recording a statement. But they also expect that at some point al Qaeda's media arm, As-Sahab, will release a video to mark bin Laden's death for maximum propaganda impact -- one that could feature a "martyrdom" video recorded by Osama bin Laden to encourage followers.

The As-Sahab videotape would likely include a message from al Qaeda's new leader.

It might take several weeks for al Qaeda to put together such a video; recent audio messages recorded by al-Zawahiri on the democracy movement sweeping the Middle East have been several weeks out of date. But according to IntelCenter, which monitors Jihadist propaganda, it would be feasible for al Qaeda to compile and distribute such a video within a week.

The clear guidelines for succession will, however, be little consolation to al Qaeda's rank and file members. Bin Laden, while alive, was the charismatic icon of the terrorist organization, and may have continued to play a greater operational role than was previously thought.

The seizure by American Navy Seals of multiple thumb drives, storage devices, and hard drives full of data raise questions about whether bin Laden was continuing to receive information about al Qaeda operations, and whether he was in turn passing on instructions through couriers. The discovery of information in Bin Laden's files on what appears to be a small-scale aspirational plot to derail U.S. commuter trains on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 indicates that bin Laden was being briefed even on the minutiae of some of al Qaeda's operations.

Western intelligence officials had previously believed that bin Laden signed off on only al Qaeda's most significant plots after 9/11, including the 2006 plot to bomb seven trans-Atlantic airliners leaving London's Heathrow Airport and the "Mumbai-style" plot to attack European cities last fall.

While bin Laden's charisma inspired a generation of recruits, al-Zawahiri is a self-styled intellectual whose long-winded video and audio tapes must be tedious to even the most committed of al Qaeda members, and whose arrogance has alienated many in al Qaeda ranks over the years.

While bin Laden was the key unifying force within al Qaeda, al-Zawahiri has always been a deeply polarizing figure within the organization, obsessing over minor theological differences with others and prioritizing jihad in Egypt over other causes.

Like al Qaeda's deceased leader, al-Zawahiri possesses no formal religious training giving him authority to make fatwas (religious judgments). But unlike bin Laden, the Egyptian did not make up for this by earning jihadist fame on the front lines of the Afghan jihad against the Soviets.

During the 1990s, many within al Qaeda resented al-Zawahiri for persuading bin Laden to channel significant funds into his Egyptian Islamic Jihad organization that otherwise would have been given to them. That was a symptom of the rivalry and tension that existed since al Qaeda's founding between the group's Egyptian faction and other nationalities within the organization, especially those from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the Gulf states.

Those who follow al Qaeda say it was only bin Laden's charismatic aloofness, epitomized by his habit of listening to his top lieutenants bicker over strategy before deciding a course of action -- that kept al Qaeda's strong centrifugal forces in check over the years.

The challenge that al-Zawahiri now faces in keeping al Qaeda from fracturing were demonstrated the last time al Qaeda fighters feared their leader may have been killed.

According to Noman Benotman, a former Libyan jihadist and now a senior analyst at the Quilliam Foundation, a UK counterterrorism think tank, around 150 Arab fighters, including a strong al Qaeda contingent, fled to Gardez in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan around the time bin Laden's Tora Bora refuge was being carpet-bombed by American B-52s in December 2001.

Benotman, who was in touch at the time with Libyan fighters in Gardez, said that no sooner had the group reached the safety of the town when infighting broke out among Egyptians, Saudis, Uzbeks and Libyans, and between al Qaeda members and fighters from other groups, over who should assume command.

The fact that under al Qaeda's bylaws members of the terrorist organization will now have to swear a personal "bayat," or oath of allegiance, to al-Zawahiri just like they did in the past to bin Laden may be too much to stomach for some of the group's Saudi and Yemeni members.

Al Qaeda's internal constitution provides near total authority to the organization's emir, giving him alone the powers to appoint a deputy and members of the Shura Council, though in the last resort it states that the Shura Council can depose the emir if he "deviates from adhering to the Islamic laws, or when he loses his competence."

It would be wrong, however, to underestimate al-Zawahiri. While the Egyptian may not be as charismatic or unifying a leader as bin Laden, he is one of the few al Qaeda leaders with a reputation for strategic cunning and vision. During the Iraqi insurgency, for example, al-Zawahiri tried in vain to persuade Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to tone down his barbaric violence, realizing that it would create a backlash against al Qaeda in Iraq.

One of al-Zawahiri's most important immediate decisions as leader would be whom to choose as the new deputy leader of al Qaeda.

In terms of seniority, one of the strongest contenders for this position would be Saif al-Adel, a former Egyptian army lieutenant and long-time member of al-Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad group. He is believed to have returned to the tribal areas of Pakistan last year after a period of house arrest in Iran. According to a former jihadist, Adel is believed to currently occupy the "chief of staff" position within al Qaeda, managing insurgent paramilitary operations in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, with a special remit to manage the group's relations with other Jihadist groups and affiliates.

However, appointing a fellow Egyptian might only increase factionalism within al Qaeda.

According to Benotman, who met al-Adel in 2000 in Kandahar, a dispute flared up between al-Adel and Saudi members of al Qaeda while the organization was based in Taliban-run Afghanistan, forcing bin Laden to transfer al-Adel from leadership of al Qaeda's military committee to its security committee. Also, the loss of al Qaeda's Saudi leader may already have had a chilling effect on the group's fundraising efforts in the Gulf region.

Al-Zawahiri may, therefore, appoint a non-Egyptian to the deputy leadership position.

One contender would be Abu Yahya al-Libi, a Libyan jihadist who made his name by escaping from Bagram Air Base in 2005. In recent yeas, al-Libi has emerged as one of al Qaeda's lead ideologues and propagandists, releasing a series of videos calling for new recruits.

According to former jihadists, al-Libi's charismatic Arab-language speeches are particularly popular among a younger generation of militants across the Arab world. However, Benotman -- the former Libyan Jihadist commander whose group included al-Libi as a junior member -- does not believe that al-Libi yet has the stature or track record as a fighter needed for promotion to a top leadership position.

A dark horse for the deputy leadership position may be Ilyas Kashmiri, a veteran Pakistani jihadist who recently became part of al Qaeda's top leadership. Kashmiri is currently the head al Qaeda's 313 brigade, a group based in the tribal areas of Pakistan. He has threatened attacks overseas similar to the Mumbai hotel attacks at the end of 2009, in which more than 200 people were killed. That operation was carried out by the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Tayyiba.

The elevation of Kashmiri would have the advantage of further strengthening ties between al Qaeda and Pakistani jihadist groups such as the Pakistani Taliban, Laskhar-e-Tayyiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Underlining the close ties between Pakistani jihadist groups and al Qaeda, the Pakistani Taliban has vowed to launch an attack in the United States to avenge bin Laden's death. The Pakistan Taliban has already been involved in one attempted attack in the United States. Faisal Shahzad, one of the group's recruits, attempted to detonate a car bomb in New York's Times Square on May 1, 2010, exactly a year before Osama bin Laden's death.

What makes a promotion for Kashmiri unlikely is that many of al Qaeda's rank and file will balk at a non-Arab being one step away from the top leadership position. Despite its many relocations and affiliations, al Qaeda has remained an Arab-centric group.

The American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki is unlikely to be promoted to a leadership position within al Qaeda "Central" as he is based in Yemen rather than Pakistan. Though al-Awlaki has emerged as a powerful charismatic preacher for bin Laden's cause and an important figure within al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, he possesses none of the combat track record that al Qaeda members over the years have so prized in their leaders. Moreover, al-Zawahiri is very unlikely to reward somebody he has never met with a key leader, or entertain the risk of being upstaged by the American.

In the end, al-Zawahiri's accession may be short-lived. The "treasure-trove" of documents, thumb drives and computer discs found in bin Laden's compound may provide American intelligence with crucial clues about his whereabouts. According to Western officials, intelligence has suggested bin Laden and al-Zawahiri continued to communicate in recent years and were possibly in relatively close geographic proximity.

CNN Top Stories

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.