A new portrait of al-Qaeda's inner workings is emerging from the cache of information seized last month in Pakistan, as investigators begin to identify a new generation of operatives who appear to be filling the vacuum created when leaders were killed or captured, senior US intelligence officials said on Monday.
Using computer records, e-mail addresses and other documents seized after the arrest of Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan last month in Pakistan, intelligence analysts say they are finding that al-Qaeda's upper echelons are being filled by lower-ranking members and more recent recruits.
"They're a little bit of both," one official said, describing al-Qaeda's new mid-level structure. "Some who have been around and some who have stepped up. They're reaching for their bench."
The new picture emerged from interviews with two officials who have been briefed on some of the details of the intelligence and analytical conclusions drawn from the information on computers seized after Khan's arrest. But they did not identify the more senior al-Qaeda leaders, and they said it was not yet clear to what extent terror figurehead Osama bin Laden still exercised control.
The new evidence suggests that al-Qaeda has retained some elements of its previous centralized command and communications structure, using computer experts like Khan to relay encrypted messages and directions from senior leaders to subordinates in countries like Britain, Turkey and Nigeria.
In the past, officials had a different view of al-Qaeda. After the US-led war in Afghanistan, most US counterterrorism analysts believed that the group had been dispersed, was on the run and had been trying to regroup in a loosely affiliated collection of extremist groups.
The arrest of Khan continued to be debated on Monday in the capital. Democratic Senator Charles Schumer asked the White House to explain how the identity of the communications expert arrested in Pakistan last month became publicly known.
He said in a letter to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice that the disclosure of Khan's capture may have complicated efforts to combat terror.
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