Al-Qaeda No 2 is the 'brain'

2004-03-19 17:04

Cairo - Osama bin Laden is the leader of al-Qaeda, but Ayman al-Zawahri, whom officials say is cornered in Pakistan, is thought to be largely responsible for turning the terror group into a feared international network.

Pakistani forces believe they have cornered, and perhaps wounded, the Egyptian-born al-Zawahri in a major battle near the Afghan border.

Al-Zawahri, bin Laden's deputy, is thought to have provided much of the ideology driving al-Qaeda since his Egyptian Islamic Jihad merged with the network in 1998, according to experts.

"He is bin Laden's brain," said Montasser el-Zayat, a prominent Egyptian attorney who defends Islamic radicals and spent three years in prison with al-Zawahri.

"He's the planner, the organiser and the thinker who laid the ground for the idea of an Islamic front."

Catching bin Laden's alleged deputy would be a significant boost to the United States campaign against terrorism, said deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz on Thursday on PBS's News Hour With Jim Lehrer.

'Go after them one by one'

El-Zayat, who was jailed with al-Zawahri in 1981 for conspiracy to assassinate the late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, said al-Qaeda would survive even if the No 2 leader was captured or killed.

Wolfowitz echoed that sentiment. "They are very decentralised operations... so, you've got to go after them one by one."

US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice also emphasised that even if al-Zawahri was captured, it wouldn't end the terror.

"Obviously, if you can take out one of the most-important leaders in al-Qaeda, that's an important step, a really important step.

"But, as we've said, al-Qaeda is a network and you have to break up the network," Rice said. She added that two-thirds of al-Qaeda's leadership had been captured or killed.

Born June 19, 1951, al-Zawahri grew up in a family of doctors and scholars.

He began his militant career in 1966 at age 15, when he was arrested for belonging to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood - the Arab world's oldest fundamentalist Muslim group, which advocates creation of an Islamic state in Egypt.

$25m reward on his head

He was later freed and graduated from Cairo University's medical school, earning a master's degree in surgery four years later.

He also wrote several books, including a critical assessment of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Al-Zawahri was indicted in the US for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, simultaneous attacks that killed 231 people and wounded more than 5 000. The US government has a $25m reward on his head.

Al-Zawahri combined his experience leading militant movements with bin Laden's money and charisma, a recipe that gave al-Qaeda its international prominence in the Islamic world, said el-Zayat.

- AP