Mr. Biden also said al-Zawahri was “deeply involved in the planning” of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. There is no doubt that al-Zawahri was the leader of a terrorist movement whose global jihad has killed thousands of people. He was the deputy to al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden and took over the organization in 2011. But for the sake of historical accuracy, Mr. Biden’s words went far beyond how the administration and terrorism experts described al-Zawahri’s record in relation to those two particularly notorious attacks. Mr. Biden’s presentation of al-Zawahri as a key conspirator in the 9/11 attacks was echoed by many news outlets about his speech, including the New York Times. But it surprised counterterrorism experts, as did the characterization of al-Zawahri’s role in the Cole bombing. The remarks also raised new questions in the 9/11 and USS Cole death penalty cases, which have been mired in pretrial hearings for more than a decade. By Friday, lawyers in both cases said they had formally requested evidence from prosecutors to support Mr. Biden’s statements. Marc Sageman, a former CIA officer who worked with Islamist militants fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and later wrote several books on terror networks and radicalization, said he was puzzled by the portrayal of al-Zawahri by Biden and wondered where the alleged role came from. “Zawahri is a legitimate target,” he said on Tuesday, a day after the president’s speech. “But the justification they gave yesterday was inaccurate. I doubt. I strongly, strongly doubt it.” The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue, defended Mr. Biden’s characterization of al-Zawahri’s background in relation to the specific attacks as accurate. The Justice Department had charged al-Zawahri, along with bin Laden and several others, as conspirators in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the official noted, adding that the administration saw “a line from that to Al Qaeda. major attacks in 2000, 2001 and beyond.” During a briefing with reporters shortly before Mr. Biden made his comments, a different senior administration official described al-Zawahri as “bin Laden’s deputy during the 9/11 attacks,” which is not disputed. That official did not mention Cole. Prosecutors in the federal civil court and military commission system at Guantanamo Bay have filed multiple indictments against Qaeda operatives accused of helping to plan the Cole bombing. These documents are dozens of pages long, presenting the government’s understanding of the participants, meetings, financial transfers and other movements that made up the conspiracy. They do not portray al-Zawahri as the mastermind of the operation, a suicide bombing by two men on a skiff that killed 17 American sailors. A Saudi detainee, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, is so described in a death penalty case at Guantanamo Bay. A CIA profile at the time of his transfer in 2006 listed him as “the mastermind and local director of the October 2000 bombing.” His charges list al-Zawahri as one of 26 participants in a Qaeda conspiracy to commit terrorist acts in general, but not as the mastermind. A military charge sheet filed in 2012 against five Guantanamo detainees accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks cited al-Zawahri only for a joint declaration of war with bin Laden in 1998, outlining the group’s history. Hours after President Biden’s announcement, former President Barack Obama used similar language on Twitter, calling al-Zawahri “one of the masterminds” of the 9/11 attacks. But defense attorneys said the language did not match the descriptions in the Guantanamo case. “The charges, the discovery and the evidence so far make almost no mention of al-Zawahri,” said James G. Connell III, a defense attorney for the chapter of Ammar al-Baluchi, the nephew of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is commonly described as . as their architect of the attack. The senior military defense attorney in the Cole case, Navy Capt. Brian L. Mizer, said al-Zawahri appears in pretrial evidence only as an al-Qaida deputy, not someone who had a specific role in the operation. Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who investigated al-Qaeda in the period surrounding the two attacks, said al-Zawahri was not the operational mastermind of any scheme. But as a senior leader, he said, al-Zawahri helped set the strategic direction for al-Qaida’s major operations during that period. “He was involved in green light operations and advised bin Laden,” Mr Soufan said. Specifically, Mr. Soufan said, there is evidence that at a meeting of al-Qaida’s senior leadership council, some opposed the 9/11 plot, fearing repercussions for their safe haven in Afghanistan, but al-Zawahri supported Bin’s wish. Laden to go ahead with it. Emile Nakhleh, a retired senior intelligence officer and director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program at the CIA, said al-Zawahri was an absolutely important target. “We’re not putting $25 million on a little fish’s head,” he said. But he considered al-Zawahri more of an “al Qaeda strategic thinker.” The senior administration official who defended Mr. Biden’s remarks also pointed to comments by Kirk Lippold, who commanded Cole at the time of the attack. Mr Lippold told a news broadcast last week that al-Zawahri, along with bin Laden, had been “intimately involved in the planning”. However, Mr. Lippold, who declined to comment for this article, did not cite any specific basis for portraying al-Zawahri as closely involved in the plot. In his 2012 memoir about the incident, “Front Burner: Al Qaeda’s Attack on the USS Cole,” Mr. Lippold mentioned bin Laden about a dozen times but did not mention al-Zawahri. Mark Fallon, who commanded a Navy task force that investigated the Cole bombing and later oversaw investigations into the military commission system, said he recalled speculation that al-Zawahri might have been involved in planning both attacks. but he knew of no evidence to support a direct connection. “It’s just not a real narrative they’re telling,” he said. “It’s up for debate.”
