Newsweek – Osama bin Laden Losing Control of Al Qaeda?

Lonely, marginalized and suddenly suspicious that he was losing his grip over the organization he helped create, Osama bin Laden finally decided that enough was enough. At least that’s the explanation sources close to him are giving for why, after three long years of silence, the Qaeda leader has released one video and two audiotapes in the past month, including last week’s audio message calling for a jihad against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

According to Omar Farooqi, a Taliban liaison officer with Al Qaeda, bin Laden recently learned that a faction within his own organization had been conspiring to sideline him, insisting unnecessarily, bin Laden now believes that he remain secluded for security reasons. CIA officials told Newsweek they could neither confirm nor reject the theory.

Bin Laden had long been chafing at this imposed gag order, says Farooqi, who learned from Sheik Saeed, Al Qaeda’s senior leader in Afghanistan, and other top operatives that bin Laden became “extremely upset” earlier this year when he discovered that some of his lieutenants feared he was dead. Bin Laden has always loved talking to the media—he used to infuriate his onetime protector, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, by holding press conferences—and, according to Farooqi, bin Laden had only reluctantly gone along with the advice that his safety required absolute silence.

Source – Newsweek