«Ayman al-Zawahiri isn’t trying to plan another 9/11 attack—because he doesn’t need to.» By @ColinPClarke and @asfandyarmir in https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/10/zawahiri-bin-laden-al-qaedas-leader-terrorist-mastermind/

A good article and I agree with many points. Just wanted to add a few of my own (thread):

i) The AQ-TB rel.ship exists due to long historical ties and possibly, TB internal policies. Not due to Zawahiri’s personal efforts or (alleged) recent meetings with TB officials.. He reneved the bay’a etc but we know little else of what he’s done

ii) The UN report about high-level meetings betw senior AQ and TB is based on info from «member states». Sources cannot be independently verified.

iii) There has alway been a young generation in AQ interested in int.terrorism, but they were, and still are, in the minority. UBL supported int.attack planning, Zawahiri probably less so. Hence the ‘individual terrorism’ strategy he announced shortly after taking over in 2011.

iv) As I wrote about in this (slightly outdated) article from 2017: http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/653/html