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| DEAD MAN |
As we reported here there were a number of candidates to fill the power vacuum left by the death of terror chief Osama Bin Laden, but now Ayman al-Zawahri has been chosen to lead them according to a statement posted Thursday on a website affiliated with the network.
The son of an upper middle class Egyptian family of doctors and scholars, his father was a pharmacology professor at Cairo University's medical school and his grandfather was the grand imam of Al-Azhar University, a premier center of religious study.
But this apple fell far from the tree and now, like Bin Laden, it's thought Al-Zawahari, who will turn 60 next week will direct the group's operations from somewhere on the Pakistan, Afghanistan border. Al-Zawahri heaped praise on his predecessor in a videotaped message last month.
He said: "He went to his God as a martyr, the man who terrified America while alive and terrifies it in death, so much so that they trembled at the idea of his having tomb."
