Zawahri 'new al-Qaeda chief'
2011-06-16 10:15
Dubai - Osama bin Laden's long-time lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahri has taken
command of al-Qaeda after the killing of the group's founder and leader, an
Islamist website said on Thursday.
Egyptian-born Zawahri had vowed earlier this month to press ahead with al-Qaeda's
campaign against the US and its allies, in what appeared to be his first public
response to bin Laden's death in a US commando raid in Pakistan in May.
"The general leadership of al-Qaeda group, after the completion of
consultation, announces that Sheikh Dr Ayman Zawahri, may God give him success,
has assumed responsibility for command of the group," Islamist website
Ansar al-Mujahideen (Followers of the Holy Warriors) said in a posted
statement.
Zawahri had been seen as bin Laden's most likely successor. His whereabouts
are unknown.
Believed to be in his late 50s, Zawahri met bin Laden in the mid-1980s when
both were in Pakistan to support guerrillas fighting the Soviets in
Afghanistan.
In a video message posted on the internet on June 8, Zawahri said al-Qaeda
would continue to fight.
"The Sheikh (bin Laden) 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,"
Zawahri 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 challenging it wherever it is."
