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Egyptian doctor has long backed extremist cause

Among top lieutenants to Osama bin Laden, several are Egyptians, including a surgeon from Cairo who ranks second in the hierarchy of the al-Qaeda organization and is seen by some intelligence experts as bin Laden's most likely successor.

The man, Doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri, 50, was the leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the terrorist group blamed for the 1981 assassination of President Anwar el-Sadat. He joined in an alliance with bin Laden's group in 1998.

After the American cruise missile attacks on al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan that year, it was Zawahiri who telephoned a Pakistani reporter on bin Laden's behalf and warned: "The war has started. The Americans should wait for the answer."

Bin Laden, a Saudi exile, has brought vast sums of family money to the al-Qaeda cause, and has proven to be an extraordinarily charismatic figure to his followers. But experts in Cairo describe Zawahiri as having delivered to the organization the complementary and equally essential skills of a shrewd intelligence and years of expertise.

"Al-Zawahiri's experience is much broader than even bin Laden's," said Dia'a Rashwan, one of Egypt's top experts on militants. "His name has come up in nearly every case involving Muslim extremists since the 1970s."

Zawahiri has not been seen in Egypt since 1986, when he packed up his office in the middle-class suburb of Maadi and departed for Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Sudan and ultimately for Afghanistan, where he is believed to share quarters with bin Laden.

His emergence as bin Laden's apparent deputy has raised his profile in Egypt, particularly since the Sept. 11 attacks, with his career seen as a particularly alarming example of how what began as homegrown grievances have metastasized into a fury of global dimensions.

Since 1999, Zawahiri has been listed as one of Egypt's most-wanted men, after authorities gave credence to claims that he had been responsible for the 1995 bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Pakistan and other acts of violence. He was sentenced to death in absentia by an Egyptian court that year for activities linked to Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

In 1999, he also was indicted by a federal grand jury in New York for his alleged role in the 1998 bombing of two US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which prompted the cruise missile attacks and, until this month, had stood as the al-Qaeda group's most appalling actions.

In his rare public statements, Zawahiri has remained extraordinarily defiant.

"Tell the Americans that we are not afraid of the bombardment, threats and acts of aggression," he told the Pakistani reporter in 1998. "We suffered and survived Soviet bombings for 10 years in Afghanistan, and we are ready for more sacrifices."

Zawahiri is now the most senior among several hundred Egyptians thought to be working under bin Laden's leadership in Afghanistan, as part of the February 1998 pact in which he enlisted his own faction of Jihad with bin Laden's group and other organizations in what they called The Islamic Front for Fighting Crusaders and Jews.

Among other Egyptians believed to be part of that front are Sobhi al-Sitta, also known by the alias Abu Hafas al-Masri, who heads what is known as the Islamic Army for the Liberation of Holy Sites, which claimed responsibility for the 1998 US embassy bombings.

Egyptians who know him describe him as an intelligent but cautious man with an extraordinary dedication to extremist causes. "He believes that attention brings trouble," said Montasser al-Zayat, a lawyer for Egypt's Islamic Group, a rival faction once closely aligned with Jihad.

Zayat, who spent three years in prison with Zawahiri after Sadat's assassination, added of the Jihad leader: "He believes that the best way to talk is through his operations."
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