Many questions were raised upon the assassination of Al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden ‎Monday, almost 10 years after the notorious 11 September 2001 attacks on the World ‎‎Trade Center and Pentagon in the US.‎
    
American officials said bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was ‎found in a million-dollar compound in the upscale town of Abbottabad, 60km (35 miles) ‎north of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. A source familiar with the operation said bin ‎Laden had been shot in the head.‎

Has the world become a safer place without bin Laden? Has his death heralded the end of ‎the US war against terror? Will his allies seek revenge? Who succeed him? These questions are now frequently asked on an international scale.‎
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Major General Adry Saied, strategic military analyst, believes Al-Qaeda and its affiliates will ‎not be notably affected by the killing of the Saudi terrorist, thanks to Al-Qaeda’s deep-seated, long-established mindset. ‎

‎“Al-Qaeda has branches in many countries in the Arab world and outside the Middle East, ‎as well. Most of these smaller organisations’ members have never seen bin Laden or ‎contacted him directly, but they apply the same strategy and have been after the ‎same goals,” he told Ahram Online.‎

‎“Bin Laden was a figure who was killed, but Al-Qaeda’s mentality and targets remain. Therefore, I would say organised terrorism will be as pervasive as ever,” he concludes.

Second-in-command is Ayman Al-‎Zawahiri. “Al-Zawahiri is expected to take over now, unless he was injured in the attack on bin Laden. ‎And, of course, the US will carry on fighting terrorism.‎

‎“Now the US-owed premises in Egypt and all over the world are targets. The US ‎personally went after bin Laden because he was culpable for the September 11th attacks, so Al-‎Qaeda’s reply is, in turn, widely expected to be out of revenge.”‎

On how bin Laden’s death went down in Egypt, Saied said: “There are two kinds of people ‎in the country, those who hate terrorism, and as such are against Al-Qaeda, and others who ‎think of bin Laden as a hero who has pulled off what no one else could. The latter kind consist ‎of anti-US people. Some of them, for instance, perceive the September 11th attacks to be a retaliation ‎for Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians.”

Political analyst, Hossam Tamam, believes bin Laden would have been regarded as a martyr ‎if it wasn’t for the recent revolutions that broke out in the Arab world, especially in Tunisia ‎and Egypt. ‎

‎“The revolts that erupted in many Arab countries of late made people look differently at ‎Al-Qaeda and its operations,” he told Ahram Online.

“Those who started the revolutions in ‎Tunisia and Egypt were peaceful young men but managed to topple their respective ‎regimes, and afterwards got to be politically involved. Their ideology was completely ‎different from Al-Qaeda's and they are definitely much more successful. ‎

‎“In Egypt the protesters brought about upheaval, even though only less than 1000 of them were killed. ‎Al-Qaeda might lose that number of its soldiers in a single operation and doesn’t get to change ‎anything. People clearly see the difference. Six months ago, Bin Laden would have been ‎deemed a martyr.‎

Tamam echoed Saied’s sentiments concerning the future of Al-Qaeda by saying: “Al-‎Zawahiri is now the shoe-in for the leading position in Al-Qaeda. He has been the actual ‎leader of the organisation, bin Laden was just a charismatic figure.”‎