Autobiography 'might be bin Laden aide's last work'
In an autobiography that some describe as his last testament, Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenant wrote he may not get another chance to speak out because of ‘‘troubled circumstances’’.
The first part of a manuscript attributed to Ayman al-Zawahri, an Egyptian surgeon with a death sentence hanging over his head in Egypt for his part in committing terrorist acts during the 1990s, appeared yesterday in the London-based Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat.
Al-Zawahri, bin Laden and other top figures in the al-Qaida network the United States holds responsible for the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington are believed to be hiding in southern Afghanistan.
The Taliban, the Afghan militia accused of harbouring al-Qaida, has lost control of all but a southern corner of the country since a US bombing campaign began in October.
‘‘I wrote this book out of an obligation to our generation and the coming generations,’’ the 50-year-old al-Zawahri said.
‘‘I might not be able to write after this in the midst of the troubled circumstances and unstable conditions which the Umma (Islamic nation) is going through.’’
The book, which the paper said will appear in eight or nine parts, is titled Knights Under The Prophet’s Banner: Contemplations On The Jihad Movement.
Asharq Al-Awsat reported that some observers consider al-Zawahri’s book to be his last testament.
It said the manuscript was smuggled from an Afghan cave into Pakistan and then on to London by an unnamed Egyptian Islamic fundamentalist. It came into the paper’s possession about two weeks ago.
Mohammed al-Awwam, the daily’s deputy editor, refused to reveal the identity of the Egyptian courier, but said he was sure of the manuscript’s authenticity.
While Asharq Al-Awsat opposes militant groups, it ‘‘decided to publish the book as it contained knowledge that should be available to all,’’ al-Awwam said.
Al-Zawahri is America’s second most wanted terrorist after bin Laden and is second only to the Saudi dissident in the International Front for Fighting the Jews and the Crusades, a group established in 1998 following a merger between al-Zawahri’s Egyptian Jihad group and bin Laden’s forces.
Al-Zawahri in his 350-page book accused Jews and Americans of being ‘‘the enemies of Islam’’.
Since he and bin Laden established their global terrorist network, bombers destroyed two American embassies in Africa in 1998, attacked a US navy destroyer docked in Yemen in 2000 and launched the September 11 air attacks on New York and Washington.
In his book, al-Zawahri wrote of a Jihad role in the bombing of the Egyptian Embassy in Pakistan in 1995. He was sentenced to death in absentia in 1999 for his role in this incident plus attempting to kill officials in Egypt.
He joined Jihad in 1966, a faction of a secretive militant group that has been linked to the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
He spent three years in jail before going to Saudi Arabia in 1985, followed by Afghanistan, Sudan and back to Afghanistan in 1996.
