With all the Irene coverage, this seems to have slipped through the cracks.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/08/28/another_al-qaeda_leader_falls_111116.htmlAugust 28, 2011
Another Al-Qaeda Leader Falls
By David Ignatius
WASHINGTON -- The death of Atiyah Abd al-Rahman in an Aug. 22 drone attack in Pakistan may appear to be just another in the revolving-door fatalities among al-Qaeda's operations chiefs. But
it was a crucial blow to the core group that once surrounded Osama bin Laden.
Atiyah, as he was known to analysts, was bin Laden's channel to the world. Their correspondence was the most important prize taken from bin Laden's compound when he was killed May 2. They talked about everything: strategy, personnel, operations, political setbacks. Whatever thread still held al-Qaeda together passed from bin Laden through to Atiyah.
The Libyan-born
Atiyah's death blunts al-Qaeda's ability to stage a new mega-attack against America; it brings the top leadership of the group closer to extinction; and it increases the likelihood that the organization's center of gravity will shift from Pakistan's tribal areas to one of the affiliates, such as the robust al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen.
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Atiyah fell to a Predator drone attack, the weapon that he and bin Laden had complained about so bitterly in their correspondence.
Atiyah had told his boss that this U.S. "intelligence war," as bin Laden had called it, had made it nearly impossible for al-Qaeda to move, communicate, recruit or train in the tribal areas of Pakistan. They had discussed whether al-Qaeda should move its headquarters to someplace safer. That relocation seems more likely, now that the man who anchored the group's presence in Pakistan is dead.