"The TTP also links with the Afghan Taliban and terrorist group Al Qaeda, notes think tank Counter Extremism Project (CEP).

The CEP says, 'As an ally of the Afghan Taliban, the TTP also fought the US-backed Afghan government prior to the latter’s defeat in August 2021. The TTP was founded in late 2007 by a group of Pakistani militants who had previously fought in Afghanistan alongside both the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and the group has maintained close ties to both organizations since.'"

"He helped build the group's operational capacity and trained some of the hijackers who took part in the September 11, 2001 attack on the United States, according to the US Counter Extremism Project."

"'The presence of al-Qaida in Iran is a sort of a chip that the Iranians have,' said Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former senior United Nations counterterrorism official who is now an adviser to the nonprofit Counter Extremism Project.

'They're not entirely sure how or when they might play it but … it was something that they considered to have potential value,' Fitton-Brown told VOA, adding that al-Adel running the terror group from Tehran is 'not that big a change from what the situation was before Zawahiri was killed.'

'Al-Qaida has always been a consultative organization,' he said. 'They have a Shura, a leadership, and Saif was already part of it. He was already a very important voice in that leadership. He's now a more important voice in that leadership.'"

"'It’s really rare. A network only works with one leader. You need one person around whom everything revolves,' Hans-Jacob Schindler, director of the independent Counter-Extremism Project think tank, told AFP."

«C'est vraiment bizarre. Un réseau ne fonctionne qu'avec un leader. Il faut une personne autour de laquelle tout s'articule», observe pour l'AFP Hans-Jakob Schindler, le directeur du centre de réflexion indépendant Counter-Extremism project (CEP). 

On this episode of “The Hunt with WTOP National Security Correspondent J.J. Green,” Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director at the Counter Extremism Project, says the warning issued by al-Qaida is unusual.