Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri appeared for the second time in a month in an online video, in which he revealed new information about his late predecessor Osama bin Laden, who he said was blind in one eye.
In the almost hour-long video, the third in a series entitled “Days with the Imam,” Zawahiri said “for those who do not know” that bin Laden was left blind in the right eye after an accident in his youth, AFP reported.
He also said bin Laden was a former member of the Saudi branch of the Muslim Brotherhood before being evicted for insisting on jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Bin Laden travelled to Pakistan to deliver cash aid to the jihadists in Peshawar but defied orders from the Brotherhood and joined the armed struggle, Zawahiri said, according to AFP.
Zawahiri’s latest video, which was 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.
On September 11, al-Zawahiri appeared in a video, released on the anniversary of the 2001 attacks, declaring that the United States is at war with Islam and that American Muslims should prepare for a “holocaust.”
It came a day after Zawahiri issued a video confirming for the first time the death of his deputy, Abu Yahya al-Libi, who was killed in a drone strike in June.