Ayman al-Zawahiri appointed as al-Qaeda leader

The long-serving second-in-command of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has been appointed its head following the death of Osama Bin Laden, the militant organisation said in a statement.

Bin Laden was killed by US forces in Pakistan in early May.

Al-Qaeda warned it would continue to fight a holy war against the US and Israel under Zawahiri's direction.

Analysts say Egyptian-born Zawahiri, 59, is intelligent but lacks the charisma of his predecessor.

He is claimed by some experts to have been the "operational brains" behind the 9/11 attacks on the US.

For years Bin Laden's deputy, with a $25m (£15m) bounty on his head, he had been widely anticipated to replace Bin Laden at the helm.

The statement announcing his appointment was posted on a militant website and attributed to al-Qaeda's General Command.

"Sheikh Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, may God guide him, assumed responsibility as the group's amir [leader]", it said.

It vowed that under Zawahiri, it would pursue jihad or holy war against the US and Israel "until all invading armies leave the land of Islam".

'Jihadist renaissance'

Zawahiri, whose 60th birthday is believed to be this Sunday, warned just over a week ago that Bin Laden would continue to "terrify" the US from beyond the grave.

In a video message posted on the internet on 8 June, Zawahiri said al-Qaeda would continue to fight.

"The sheikh has departed, may God have mercy on him, to his God as a martyr and we must continue on his path of jihad to expel the invaders from the land of Muslims and to purify it from injustice," Zawahiri said.

"Today, and thanks be to God, America is not facing an individual or a group, but a rebelling nation, which has awoken from its sleep in a jihadist renaissance."

The BBC's Middle East correspondent, Jon Leyne, says priorities for al-Qaeda's new leader may include attempting to to mount a big attack to show the organisation is still in business.

In addition, he says, Zawahiri will want to turn the wave of unrest in the Middle East to al-Qaeda's advantage - perhaps building more of a power base in Yemen and working to intensify the instability there.

Divisions?

In his message last week, Zawahiri applauded the Arab uprisings against "corrupt and tyrant leaders" and urged those involved to continue their "struggle until the fall of all corrupt regimes that the West has forced onto our countries".

But our correspondent adds that the delay in announcing Zawahiri as al-Qaeda chief - coming as it does more than six weeks after Bin Laden's death, despite his being the obvious choice - may point to divisions within the leadership.

Zawahiri has for years had a bounty on his head and security analysts have suggested he is most likely to be hiding in the Afghan-Pakistan border region.

However, Bin Laden and other key militant leaders who were also believed to be concealed there have instead been discovered in Pakistani towns and cities.

Bin Laden's killing by US special forces in a covert operation in the garrison town of Abbottabad on 2 May strained Washington's relations with Islamabad.

US President Barack Obama said "someone" was protecting Bin Laden, but Pakistan has denied any knowledge of Bin Laden's whereabouts and has arrested alleged CIA informants.

France follows Britain and US in shutting Yemen embassy

France has become the third Western nation to shut its Yemen embassy, after threats from an al-Qaeda offshoot, the foreign ministry in Paris announced.

The US and UK missions, which closed on Sunday, remain shut.

Reports that the closures were prompted by Yemeni security forces losing track of six trucks full of arms were denied by British officials.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula last week said it was behind an alleged plot to bomb a US airliner.

It urged attacks on "crusaders" in embassies.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Yemen was a threat both regionally and globally.

Threats to US interests in Yemen pre-dated the Christmas holiday period, and the embassy would be re-opened only when circumstances permitted, she said in Washington.

From Monday all travellers flying to America are being subjected to new security measures, introduced by the US government.

Airport staff will now carry out extra screening of people from 14 countries, including those the US considers to be state-sponsors of terrorism - Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria.

Yemen and Nigeria - through which the alleged bomber travelled - also face the new restrictions.

Passengers flying from other countries will be checked at random.

On Monday in Paris, French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero told reporters their Yemen ambassador had decided the previous day to suspend public access to the embassy.

French citizens in the country had been warned to be vigilant and limit their movements, he added.

The US was the first to announce the closure of its embassy on Sunday, citing "ongoing threats" by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and the UK followed suit.

A US diplomat told the Reuters news agency on Monday: "The embassy is still closed again today... We are continuing to make the security review."

The Japanese foreign ministry said consular services had been suspended at its embassy in Yemen but other business was continuing, AFP news agency reported.

The German foreign ministry confirmed security had been tightened at its mission but that the embassy remained open

Spain restricted public access to its embassy.

The Yemeni authorities have tightened security measures at Sanaa's airport, as well as around several other embassies.

Yemeni security forces, meanwhile, shot dead two militants north of the capital, Sanaa, said officials.

The US embassy was the target of an attack in September 2008 in which 19 people died, including a young American woman. The attack was blamed on AQAP.

On Sunday, the US deputy national security adviser for homeland security and counter-terrorism said there were "indications that al-Qaeda is planning to carry out an attack against a target inside of Sanaa, possibly our embassy".

John Brennan told ABC the group had "several hundred members" in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, and was posing an increasing threat.

Last week, AQAP urged Muslims to help in "killing every crusader who works at their embassies or other places".

The group also said it was behind an alleged failed attempt to destroy an Amsterdam-Detroit flight with nearly 300 people aboard on Christmas Day.

Mr Brennan told CNN there were "indications" a radical US cleric of Yemeni origin had links both to the Nigerian charged with the bomb plot, and the man accused of November's shootings at a Texas military base.

He said the preacher, Anwar al-Awlaki, had had contact with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, while he was allegedly being trained by AQAP operatives last year.

It was clear, he said, that Mr Awlaki had also been in touch with Nidal Malik Hasan, the US Army major charged with shooting dead 13 people at Fort Hood.

On Saturday, the head of US Central Command, Gen David Petraeus, visited Yemen's President Ali Abdallah Saleh to pledge support for its fight with al-Qaeda, after Washington doubled its counter-terrorism aid.

Yemeni officials last week said they had sent more troops to hunt down al-Qaeda militants in the provinces of Abyan, Baida and Shabwa.

Correspondents say the security situation in Yemen is complicated by an abundance of firearms, an insurgency in the north and a secessionist movement in the south.

But the prospects of re-asserting central government authority over the lawless areas where al-Qaeda is based look, in the opinion of some analysts, remote - even with beefed-up American support.

US arrests three Africans in 'al-Qaeda cocaine sting'

A court in the US has for the first time charged suspected members of al-Qaeda with plotting to traffic cocaine in order to fund terrorism.

The three suspects, who are believed to be from Mali, were extradited to New York from Ghana.

They were arrested this week in an operation involving informants posing as Colombian leftist rebels.

The suspects allegedly offered al-Qaeda protection for moving cocaine from West Africa through the Sahara to Spain.

They arrived in the US on Friday and were ordered to be held without bail after a brief court appearance. They did not enter pleas to charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy and conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, US officials said.

Washington has long been concerned about close ties between militants and the heroin trade in Afghanistan but the African case appears to show an expansion of both al-Qaeda's global operations and the US response, The Associated Press news agency reports.

Lebanese cover

The US authorities say the men are associates of al-Qaeda's North African branch and had told US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) informants that al-Qaeda could protect major shipments of cocaine in the region, driving the drugs by lorry through the Sahara desert.

All in their 30s, the suspects were named as Oumar Issa, Harouna Toure and Idriss Abelrahman.

Unsealed court papers say Mr Toure and Mr Abelrahman at one point claimed the profits from the drug business would "go to their people to support the fight for 'the cause'".

The DEA infiltrated the group by using informants posing as supporters of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc.

In particular, the DEA used a French-speaking informant posing as "a Lebanese radical committed to opposing the interests of the United States, Israel, and, more broadly, the West and its ideals", court papers say.

The informant claimed in secretly taped conversations that the Farc were looking for a secure means of smuggling drugs through western and northern Africa on the way to Europe.

During the negotiations, the al-Qaeda suspects allegedly offered to move cocaine from west Africa to north Africa for about 3,000 euros ($4,200) per kilo.