Zawahiri... Second in command of al-Qaeda, occasionally described as
the real brainsof the outfit. Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's
fatwaentitled
World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders.Currently residing in the North Wazoo area. That is not a horn growing from the middle of his forehead, but a prayer bump, attesting to how devout he is...
as al Qaeda's new leader and vowed to carry out attacks against Western targets.
A bad turban website said Zawahri has taken command of al Qaeda, after the killing of the late Osama bin Laden
... who is currently taking a long nap in the dirt... urm... water...
in a secret US raid in Pakistain last month.
Pak Taliban front man Ehsanullah Ehsan described Zawahri as an "capable person" and said the former Egyptian doctor would inspire the group to take on the West.
"We have been carrying out our activities which, inshallah (God willing), will gather more momentum. We will get Dire Revenge™ for the oppression by the West," he told Rooters by telephone from
The Pak Taliban, which has close links with al Qaeda and other anti-Western bad turban organisations, has been blamed for many of the suicide kabooms across Pakistain, a US ally seen as critical to American efforts to stabilise Afghanistan.
It has bigger ambitions but has not proven capable of carrying out sophisticated attacks in the West. It grabbed credit for a botched bombing in New York's Times Square.
Last year, the United States added the Tehrik-i-Taliban (Taliban Movement of Pakistain) to its list of foreign terrorist organisations.
US prosecutors charged TTP leader Hakimullah Mehsud over a plot that killed seven CIA employees at a US base in Afghanistan in 2009.
Zawahri's relationship with groups like the TTP could determine whether the man regarded as the operational brains behind al Qaeda can strengthen an organisation that has lost steam since the Sept. 11 attacks a decade ago.
Omar Khalid Khorasani, a senior Pak Taliban capo, recently said in response to questions posed by Rooters that Zawahri was the group's "chief and supreme leader".
Zawahri has expressed contempt for the US-backed Pak government. In recordings posted on the Internet he has urged Paks to revolt against their government and army. Like other bad turbans, he sees Pakistain as a US puppet.
In an audio recording, released in September last year, he accused the Pak government of responding too slowly to floods that devastated the country.
"The primary concern of the ruling class in the government and army of Pakistain is filling their domestic and foreign bank accounts with dollars, and as far as they are concerned, Pakistain and its people can go to hell," he said.
Actually, he's got a point there...
Zawahri has tried to settle scores with the Egyptian government on Pak soil. He was seen as the criminal mastermind of the suicide kaboom of the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad in 1995 that killed 16 people.
