By PAUL SPERRY

Among Americans installed in al-Qaida leadership positions are propagandist Adam Gadahn, left, and Adnan Shukrijumah, believed to be directing U.S.... View Enlarged Image

If al-Qaida looks and sounds different as we approach 9/11's ninth anniversary, it's because it's under new American management. No fewer than four U.S. citizens and a permanent U.S. resident have risen to senior leadership posts.

These five English-speaking leaders are actively planning or facilitating attacks against their countrymen, while recruiting and radicalizing other American turncoats to carry them out.

By remaking itself into an American enterprise, al-Qaida is now more lethal than ever. Its new generation of leaders understands the way America works, having lived here for decades. They have a better sense of our security blind spots. They also know which kinds of attacks will produce both mass panic and maximum economic damage.

Al-Qaida's indigenous rebirth, moreover, befogs our military strategy. We're no longer at war with just a foreign enemy, but fellow Americans recruited by the enemy. They're supplied, in turn, by a seemingly endless stream of homegrown foot soldiers, fed by a native Muslim population once believed quiescent and nonthreatening.

Shockingly, the War on Terror has morphed into a mini-civil war, and it's posing major new challenges to its prosecution. We're now battling our own citizens. How do we deal with wartime traitors? Can the CIA assassinate them? Can it spy on them? What about their civil rights?

This muddies an already muddy war — and it's all part of al-Qaida's plan.

After 9/11, the group vowed to convert our own people against us, something once thought impossible. But it's managed to groom a startling number of American citizens and residents and install them in top leadership slots, including:

• Adnan Shukrijumah: The long-time Florida resident, who obtained a green card while living in the U.S. for more than 15 years, has replaced 9/11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammad as chief of al-Qaida's terror operations.

Believed to be directing U.S. terrorist cells from Pakistan, Shukrijumah, 35, recently was indicted as a conspirator in last year's plot to blow up the New York subway. There's a $5 million reward for his capture.

• Adam Gadahn: The California-born Muslim convert assists Shukrijumah and Osama bin Laden as al-Qaida's chief propagandist. He tailors the group's message to American Muslims, as well as disaffected minorities ripe for conversion.

In 2006, Gadahn invoked U.S. Muslims to attack military bases, singling out California's Camp Pendleton as a candidate for "a shooting spree." Three years later, a Muslim soldier went on a shooting spree at Fort Hood. Gadahn, 31, praised the attack and urged more.

The first American to be charged with treason in 50 years, Gadahn is hiding in Pakistan with a $1 million bounty on his head.

• Anwar Awlaki: Articulate and media savvy, the American-born cleric is al-Qaida's top recruiter of Western suicide cells.

Awlaki has recruited or radicalized countless homegrown terrorists, including the Fort Hood shooter and the Times Square bomber, both English-speaking citizens. Authorities also believe he ordered the Christmas airliner attack, which puts Awlaki in the middle of the last three major terror acts on U.S. soil. Read more here.

New al Qaeda chief lived in U.S. for years

Familiarity with America seen as a problem by FBI agent

Adnan Shukrijumah, 35, is a suspected al Qaeda operative

MIAMI | A suspected al Qaeda operative who lived for more than 15 years in the U.S. has become chief of the terror network's global operations, the FBI says, marking the first time a leader so intimately familiar with American society has been placed in charge of planning attacks.

Adnan Shukrijumah, 35, has taken over a position once held by 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was captured in 2003, Miami-based FBI counterterrorism agent Brian LeBlanc told the Associated Press in an exclusive interview. That puts him in regular contact with al Qaeda's senior leadership, including Osama bin Laden, Mr. LeBlanc said. Read more here.