Paul Cruickshank: : Could the Killing of Al Qaeda's No. 3 Sever Taliban Ties?

The killing of Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, the Egyptian head of al Qaeda's operations in Afghanistan, in a drone strike in North Waziristan last month is undoubtedly a body blow to the terrorist organization. But, more importantly, his death might signal an end to the close ties between al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban -- for it was Yazid, more than any other figure, who was the linchpin of the special relationship between the two groups.

Yazid, one of al Qaeda's founders, the veteran head of its finance committee, and the organizational head of operations in Afghanistan, is the most senior figure in the terrorist group to be killed since Osama bin Laden's right-hand man, Mohammed Atef, the longstanding Egyptian operational commander, was killed in a drone strike in Afghanistan shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

But Yazid will not primarily be missed because of his operational value to al Qaeda or his military acumen. He built his reputation as al Qaeda's moneyman and bin Laden's chief administrator, not as a strategist or fighter. The main reason Yazid's loss is such a setback to al Qaeda is because of his close and enduring ties to Mullah Omar, head of the Afghan Taliban.

"Nobody within al Qaeda had better relations with Mullah Omar and the Taliban than Yazid," Noman Benotman, a former Libyan jihadist who knew Yazid and last met him in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan in 2000, told me. "At a time when the Taliban is questioning its relationship with al Qaeda, this is a great loss for al Qaeda."

In the last year, Mullah Omar has begun to start untangling himself from his association with al Qaeda, calculating that loosening the knot might make Taliban's return to a position of power in Afghanistan more palatable to the key players in the region, according to sources aware of the content of talks between representatives of the Taliban and the Afghan government. The July 2009 directive to issue a new code of conduct for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan and the Taliban's more recent rhetoric about their struggle being local rather than international are both elements of this new strategy.

So far, Mullah Omar has refused to repudiate al Qaeda or promise to keep the terrorist organization out of Afghanistan if the Taliban were to return to a position of power, likely the absolute minimum demands of the United States in any future negotiated settlement for Afghanistan. In part, this was due to his long and close relationship with Yazid.

Without Yazid to make the case, however, al Qaeda is in a much-weakened position to argue against such concessions. According to Benotman, Yazid was almost certainly appointed as the head of al Qaeda's Afghanistan operations in 2007 to nurture the terrorist group's relationship with the Taliban rather than because of any military rationale. "He was really connected to them, and it was crucial for al Qaeda to find somebody to fill this role. Ayman al-Zawahiri [al Qaeda's No. 2] can't do this because he doesn't have those relationships." In this light, the drone strike that killed Yazid might be seen as a major success: The loss of Taliban support would be nothing less than a strategic disaster for al Qaeda, calling into question its ability to operate in Afghanistan and ending its hopes of once again using the country as a base for its international operations.

But how did Yazid come to foster such close ties? His jihadi career, like those of so many others at the top levels of al Qaeda, began in Egypt. Born in 1955 in Sharqiya on the eastern side of the Nile Delta, Yazid became involved in the 1970s in Islamist circles linked to the Egyptian Islamic Jihad group. After the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat by Islamic Jihad in 1981, Yazid and hundreds of other members of the group -- including Zawahiri -- were imprisoned under exceptionally harsh conditions by the Egyptian government, contributing toward their hardening into life-long terrorists.

Released after three years in jail, Yazid moved to Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1987, where he joined up with Zawahiri, who had relaunched a branch of Egyptian Islamic Jihad there. In Peshawar, Yazid met bin Laden and forged an exceptionally close bond with the Saudi millionare-jihadist, helping him launch al Qaeda in 1988 as an Arab force dedicated to defending Muslim lands. It was only 10 years later that Zawahiri formally allied himself with bin Laden.

Yazid became bin Laden's principal bookkeeper, managing the internal administration of al Qaeda, its fundraising activities, and the payment of salaries to fighters. After the group's top leadership decamped to Sudan in the early 1990s, Yazid also helped bin Laden administer his extensive business interests there and managed the disbursement of funds to jihadi groups. At that point, he became known in jihadi circles as Sheikh Saeed al-Muhasseb ("the accountant") and developed a reputation as a shrewd, quiet, and efficient man, well respected by his peers. When he moved to Afghanistan in the late 1990s -- now a member of a terrorist organization intent on targeting the United States -- Yazid forged close ties to the Taliban and emerged as a key go-between between bin Laden and Mullah Omar.

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