'Armchair general' Zawahiri no bin Laden

New Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri lacks the skills and credentials of the terror network's slain leader Osama bin Laden, a senior US administration official said Thursday. "He hasn't demonstrated strong leadership or organizational skills during his time in AQ or previously while in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad," the official said, asking to remain anonymous. Al-Qaeda on Thursday named the Egyptian surgeon, and the group's long-time number two, to succeed bin Laden, who was killed in a May 2 US commando raid on his compound in Pakistan. "His ascension to the top leadership spot will likely generate criticism if not alienation and dissension with Al-Qaeda," the official said. He stressed the 59-year-old has not had any actual combat experience, and had opted instead "to be an armchair general with a 'soft' image." "The bottom line is that Zawahiri has nowhere near the credentials that UBL had," he added, referring to the bin Laden. Like his slain Saudi-born co-conspirator, Zawahiri has been in hiding since the United States declared its war on terror after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Now Washington's most wanted man, Zawahiri was jailed for three years in Egypt for militancy and was implicated in the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981, and a 1997 massacre of tourists in Luxor. Facing a death sentence, he left Egypt in the mid-1980s initially for Saudi Arabia, but soon headed for Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar where the resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was based, and then to Afghanistan, where he joined forces with bin Laden. Gifted with brains but bereft of bin Laden's potent charisma, Zawahiri has long been seen as the mastermind behind the global terror franchise. But the US official said he believed Zawahiri faces a tough time at the head of the terror network. "No matter who is in charge, he will have a difficult time leading AQ while focusing on his own survival as the group continues to hemorrhage key members responsible for planning and training operatives for terrorist attacks," he said.