Islamist leader Osama bin Laden was blind in one eye, according to his successor at the head of terrorist network al-Qaeda. Ayman al-Zawahiri made the claim in an hour-long account of the life of bin Laden, who was killed in a U.S. Navy Seal raid on his compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan, last year.
In a video entitled Days With The Imam, uploaded to an radical Islamist website, al-Zawahiri also reveals that bin Laden was a one-time member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Zawahiri revealed 'for those who do not know' that Saudi-born bin Laden was left blind in his right eye after an accident during his youth. He also revealed that the terrorist mastermind was expelled from the Saudi branch of the Muslim Brotherhood for insisting on waging jihad - holy war - against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
It is claimed that bin Laden traveled to the Pakistani city of Peshawar, near the border with Afghanistan, to deliver cash to the Taliban, but then defied the Brotherhood's orders to join the armed struggle. The connection to the Brotherhood is especially controversial since their ascent to power in Egypt following that country's revolution against the U.S.-backed military establishment that had run the country for decades.
Zawahiri’s latest video posted on a jihadist forum appeared to be around two months old as he offered greetings to Muslims for the start of the fasting month of Ramadan which ended on August 20, reported Al Arabiya News.
Earlier this month Zawahiri's brother gave an interview to news network CNN in which he outlined his personal 'peace plan' he said could lead to a rapprochement between Islamists and the West.
Speaking on the eve of the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, Mohamed al-Zawahiri said he and his brother are ideologically inseparable.
'Our people like death, the same way others like life,' he told reporter Nic Robertson. 'But we do not want to get into this endless cycle of violence. We like for the others and us to live peacefully.'
Later he says, 'The portrayal of my brother's ideologies and mine: that it’s blood thirsty, barbaric, or terrorist, is not true at all.'
Bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011 by U.S. commandos in a daring night raid in Abbottabad that left the Pakistani military angry it had not been consulted. While much of the world cheered the death, Pakistan fumed over what it called a violation of its sovereignty.
The compound where bin Laden was hiding out was finally demolished in February.
By DAMIEN GAYLE
