Washington - (AFP) - The US State Department said on Wednesday that the Egyptian citizen residing in Iran, Saif al-Adel , became the leader of al-Qaeda after the killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri in July 2022.

"Our assessment is consistent with the assessment of the United Nations - that the new de facto leader of al-Qaeda, Saif al-Adel, is in Iran," a ministry spokesman said.

The United Nations issued a report on Tuesday stating that the prevailing view of member states is that al-Adl has become the leader of the jihadist organization.

However, the organization has not yet officially declared him its "emir" due to its sensitivity to the concerns of the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan, who did not want to admit that al-Zawahiri was killed by an American missile in a house in Kabul last year, according to the United Nations report.

The UN report also mentioned that the Sunni al-Qaeda organization is sensitive to the issue of Saif al-Adel's leadership because of its residency in Iran, which has a Shiite majority.

The UN report pointed out that "his whereabouts raises questions that have an impact on al-Qaeda's ambitions to assert its leadership in a global movement in the face of the challenges of the Islamic State," its rival.

Saif al-Adl, 62, is a former officer in the Egyptian Special Forces and a prominent figure in al-Qaeda's old guard.

Al-Adl helped build the organization's operational capacity and trained some of the hijackers who participated in the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, according to the American organization "Counter Extremism Project."

Former FBI counterterrorism investigator Ali Soufan said Saif al-Adel had lived in Iran since 2002 or 2003, when he was initially placed under house arrest, but later became free enough to make trips to Pakistan.

"Saif is one of the most experienced professional fighters in the global jihadist movement, and his body bears the scars of battle," Soufan wrote in an article published in 2021 for CTC Magazine, issued by the West Point Counter-Terrorism Center.

"When it moves, it does it efficiently," he added.