In Washington, US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said any capture of Zawahiri would be a major blow to al-Qaeda.
"Were it true, it would be a major step forward in the war on terrorism, because he's obviously an extremely important figure," Rice told CNN.
Zawahiri, 52, is a former leader of the Egyptian Jihad movement which was implicated in the 1981 assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and the 1997 massacre of foreign tourists at Luxor on the Nile River.
He has been indicted over the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, and often appears at bin Laden's side in taped interviews distributed by al-Qaeda.
In a taped message released on Feb. 24, a man claiming to be Zawahiri warned US President George W. Bush to step up security and threatened new attacks on the US.
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