On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “All In,” author and Staff Writer for The New Yorker Lawrence Wright said that he thinks “the most likely” person to take over the leadership of al-Qaeda in the wake of the death of Ayman al-Zawahiri is Saif al-Adl, who has been living in Iran, in addition to “several other al-Qaeda leaders” who have “been living there for decades.”
Wright stated, “Now, the next step, there are future leaders that have been trained for al-Qaeda. I think the most likely one is Saif al-Adl who — living in Iran now, as have several other al-Qaeda leaders, been living there for decades. And he may well come out of Iran and take over the leadership of al-Qaeda. I think he would be the most formidable candidate. He’s smart. He’s a strategist. He’s got great connections and a tremendous amount of loyalty from people that are in the organization now.”
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