The Man Teaching the Taliban New Terror Tactics

Reuters He handled bin Laden’s money and may have ties to a fresh plot to attack America. Now, experts say, Mustafa abu al-Yazid is helping teach the Taliban new terror tactics. Howard Altman reports.

He was imprisoned in Egypt for his role in the assassination of Anwar Sadat, according to al Qaeda and those who monitor its followers. He was a founding member of Osama bin Ladin’s jihadist organization, serving as bin Laden’s personal accountant and helping to raise funds for the 9/11 attacks. He’s drawn global attention for threatening to seize Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and use it against the United States and its allies. And, according to the Associated Press, he served through a middleman as a link between al Qaeda and Najibullah Zazi, the 24-year-old airport van driver accused last month of trying to carry out a series of attacks in the U.S. (Zazi has pleaded not guilty.)

By tapping al-Yazid, “Al Qaeda put someone in charge who they feel has the ability to prevent al Qaeda from moving further away from the Taliban and, better yet, enhance its current state of influence,” says Kamran Bokhari, director of South Asia Analysis for STRATFOR.

But maybe the most important reason Americans should care about Mustafa abu al-Yazid, also known as Sheik Saeed, is that he is now the head of al Qaeda in Afghanistan. And in that role, he has built new and potentially deadly ties to the Taliban—forging alliances that may greatly complicate the Obama administration’s decisions about what to do in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“I believe that the most significant, visible development over the past few years was the appointment of al-Yazid in 2007,” says Anne Stenersen, a research fellow at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment’s Terrorism Research Group and expert on the al Qaeda-Taliban relationship. “Al-Yazid's background is in financing and administration, thus he has a very different background from his predecessors, who were mostly military commanders.”

Al-Yazid, says Stenersen, has a “diplomatic” personality and enjoys “previous good relationships with various local militants. “His appointment indicates that al Qaeda sees it as important to strengthen its ties with the local militant groups and that it wants to play a supportive role for the Taliban, rather than trying to contest for power with them,” says Stenersen.

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• Lee Siegel: Generals Can’t Be TrustedKamran Bokhari, director of South Asia Analysis for STRATFOR, the global intelligence company, agrees that there is great symbolism in the choice of al-Yazid—a slightly built fellow in glasses and a turban, a money man rather than a soldier—to head al Qaeda’s Afghanistan operations.

“The appointment of al-Yazid is more about managing a relationship that al Qaeda has not paid attention to,” says Bokhari, reached by phone at his hotel in Islamabad. “Al Qaeda has been operationally far more influential with the Pakistani Taliban than the Afghan Taliban. And he is here to manage that relationship.”

Al-Yazid’s appointment, says Bokhari, means al Qaeda is “taking Afghanistan more seriously and wanting a closer relationship to the Afghan Taliban. Al Yazid’s presence is to avoid a loss of influence. Al Qaeda put someone in charge who they feel has the ability to prevent al Qaeda from moving further away from the Taliban and, better yet, enhance its current state of influence.”

Whether he will be successful remains to be seen, says Bokhari.