Thursday, May 19th 2011, 4:00 AM
Alert the SEALs: Al Qaeda has a new leader.
The terror network, which lost its head two weeks ago when U.S. Navy commandos shot Osama Bin Laden in his bedroom, has appointed Saif al-Adel as temporary No. 1, Pakistani newspapers reported.
The Egyptian soldier is known for his planning skills, his advanced commando training courses for terrorists - and for opposing Bin Laden's plans for the 9/11 attacks.
Adel is said to have argued that they would provoke the U.S. to retaliate and strip the group of its safe haven in Afghanistan, damaging the network.
"During six months, we lost what we built in years," he wrote in a chiding I-told-you-so letter in 2002 to the commander of the attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
Noman Benotman, a former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, told CNN that Adel was elevated to be caretaker in chief because the global jihadist community was growing restive about the leadership vacuum.
Times are tough for Al Qaeda, which has been swept aside in the Arab Spring by youth movements demanding freedom and democracy - not the anti-modern Islamic fundamentalism being peddled by the terrorists.
Senior Taliban sources speaking to CBS News cast doubt on the reports about Adel, saying he is "a key figure" but has not taken an active leadership role - at least not yet.
Most analysts expect Bin Laden's long-time deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri will eventually emerge as the terror network's permanent new leader.
Adel, who is about 50 and whose real name is Muhamad Ibrahim Makkawi, was a colonel in the Egyptian special forces and a mastermind of the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
He is an Al Qaeda pioneer who fought with the mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Soviet invasion of the 1980s.
According to the 2006 "Secret History of Al Qaeda," Adel and Bin Laden left the Sudan for Afghanistan together on a private jet in 1996.
In a story Bin Laden used to retell humorously, a mistrustful Adel wouldn't tell the Russian pilot their final destination and sat in the cockpit "throughout the entire journey, his gun across his lap, scouring maps and checking navigation instruments" - utterly terrifying the captain.
Adel has ties to Hezbollah, the Islamic Jihad and a host of other militant Islamic groups.
The FBI already has a $5 million price on his head for his role in the devastating 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.
He is also believed to have directed the Somali fighters who killed 18 U.S. servicemen in Mogadishu in 1993.
Pakistan's The News newspaper reported that he was chosen at a secret meeting of Al Qaeda generals.
"None of the sons of Osama Bin Laden has shown willingness to join any post in the Al Qaeda," the paper said.
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