LONDON, Sept 16: In an interesting twist to the self-serving Osama bin Laden fairy tales being churned out by the western media from time to time since 9/11,The Sunday Telegraph has come up with a fantastic theory that he has been toppled by his deputy and that Al Qaeda is still operating from Pakistan’s tribal area.

According to the ST theory being passed off as a fact, Ayman Al-Zawahiri has seized control of Al Qaeda and rebuilt the terror network into an organisation capable of launching complex terror attacks in UK and America.

Citing information gathered by Pakistani intelligence, Bruce Hoffman, a member of the US Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Centre, said: “Bin Laden is the brand name but Al-Zawahiri is the grand strategist.

“He has taken control of Al Qaeda. Despite the new video (released this month), bin Laden has ceased to be a major force in decision-making and propaganda effort.”

A former British intelligence officer said that Al Qaeda under Al-Zawahiri’s direction had promoted a new generation of leaders to the highest echelons of the shura, a group of about 20 to 30 leaders who govern operations, finance and religious fatwahs.

“The guys on the subs’ bench are now in the first XI,” he said. “They have stopped using mobile phones to talk to each other, which has made it more difficult to find them.”

When Osama marked the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by releasing two videos, it highlighted the key role of Adam Gadahn, an American widely credited with helping to write the script.

Gadahn, 28, an Islamic convert from California, is the first American charged with treason since 1952 and has appeared in dozens of Al Qaeda videos as “Azzam the American”. But it is Al-Zawahiri — who has quadrupled the number of videos produced each year to more than 60 — who is credited with stepping up the propaganda effort.

The new powers that be in Al Qaeda, Al-Zawahiri and Gadahn, had “fired a great number of warnings at the United States this year.

Quoting other intelligence officers the paper said that bin Laden has not chaired a meeting of Al Qaeda’s ruling shura, or council, in more than two years.

Instead, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s nominal number two, is credited with rebuilding the terror network since the Afghan war in 2001.

British and American intelligence agencies believe that a network of terrorist cells, funded, controlled and supported by Al Qaeda’s central command, based in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan, is in place again.

Al-Zawahiri’s task has been made easier because not a single prominent Al Qaeda leader has been captured since March 2006, nearly 18 months ago.