"In comments to the Voice of America’s news website, Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former senior UN counterterrorism official who is now an adviser to the nonprofit Counter Extremism Project, said: 'The presence of Al-Qaeda in Iran is a sort of a chip that the Iranians have. They’re not entirely sure how or when they might play it but . . . it was something that they considered to have potential value.”'"

"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.'"