Atiyah Abd al-Rahman's death: A 'body blow' for al Qaeda?

Many people have never heard of al Qaeda's No. 2 guy, but his death by drone strike might just be as big a deal as Osama bin Laden's killing

Atiyah And al-Rahman, al Qaeda's second-ranking figure
(Image credit: REUTERS/National Counterterrorism Center)

U.S. and Pakistani officials announced over the weekend that a CIA drone killed al Qaeda second-in-command Atiyah Abd al-Rahman in the mountainous frontier region of Pakistan on Aug. 22. Rahman, a Libyan, represented a new generation of al Qaeda leaders, and had become the network's top operations planner over the past year. He was in frequent contact with Osama bin Laden, and was promoted to No. 2 after bin Laden's death. Is this a major blow to an already weakened al Qaeda, or just another obscure death in an organization that goes "through No. 2's quicker than Dr. Evil?"

Rahman's death is a huge deal: This may seem like "just another in the revolving-door fatalities among al Qaeda's operations chiefs," says David Ignatius in The Washington Post. But it's much bigger: Rahman was bin Laden's conduit to al Qaeda. He was more important to the network than the new No. 1, the "divisive" and unpopular Ayman al-Zawahiri. Rahman's death is "a body blow" against the terrorist group, and moves al Qaeda's top leadership a big step "closer to extinction."

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