(Reuters) - Afghans in the Taliban heartland of southern Afghanistan described Osama bin Laden as al Qaeda's "number one martyr" after the leader of the hardline group was killed in neighboring Pakistan."Now he is the number one martyr for al Qaeda because he is stronger dead than alive," one man, who asked not to be identified, said on Monday in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.
"He always predicted that he would be killed by Americans. Now he will become a fire that Muslims will follow for generations," said the heavily bearded man.
Kandahar was the birthplace of the Taliban and is believed to be where al Qaeda hatched the plan to attack U.S. cities almost 10 years ago.
The Taliban were toppled by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in the months after the September 11 attacks but the war has dragged on since, hitting its most violent levels in 2010.
"Bin Laden's death doesn't matter because al Qaeda is more than him and it's a big idea now," another Kandahar man said.
Some Afghan officials also said bin Laden's influence would continue and believed the militant network would try to avenge his death.
"His death will bring about positive changes for the moment but for the future, it will intensify fighting in Afghanistan because al Qaeda will seek revenge," Ahmad Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, told Reuters.
U.S. President Barack Obama announced late on Sunday in Washington that bin Laden had been killed.
Ahmad Wali Karzai is also the head of Kandahar's provincial council and is one of the most powerful men in southern Afghanistan.
Kandahar was the spiritual seat of power for reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar before the group's leaders were driven across the border into Pakistan.
While al Qaeda's influence in Afghanistan has waned, the Taliban-led insurgency has grown. Violence in Afghanistan hit its worst levels in 2010 since the Taliban were ousted, despite the presence of almost 150,000 foreign troops.
The Taliban announced at the weekend the start of a new "spring offensive" that would target foreign and Afghan troops as well as Afghan government officials.
(Reporting by Ismail Sameem in KANDAHAR and Hamid Shalizi in KABUL; Writing by Jonathon Burch; Editing by Paul Tait and Miral Fahmy)
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Al-Qaeda member Ayman al-Zawahiri is shown in this undated television screen grab. (AFP/Getty Images) |
Wanted terrorist and brother-in-law of al Qaeda's number two commander,
Ayman al-Zawahiri, is dead, according to an announcement on an Islamist website.
The announcement, posted Monday on the website for the al-Maqrizi Center for Historical Studies, says that Usama Hasan, whose sister Omayma is married to al-Zawahiri, was "martyred" in Afghanistan earlier this year. According to the statement, Hasan, from Cairo, was convicted in absentia by Egyptian courts in 1999 for his membership in the Egyptian terror group Gama'a Islamiya, part of which later merged with al Qaeda.
He was arrested again in Iran in 2001, released later that year and made his way to Afghanistan where he mysteriously dropped off the radar, the statement says, until the al-Maqrizi Center claimed they received information related to his death.
The statement does not release details or circumstances of Hasan's death in Afghanistan, but Islamist websites frequently announce deaths once they become known. Hasan was not a major figure in al Qaeda or Gama'a Islamiya, but he was connected by family and marriage to some of the world's most dangerous and notorious terrorists. According to the al-Maqrizi Center announcement, two of Hasan's other sisters were also married to leaders of Zawahiri's Islamic Jihad, which later became part of al Qaeda. One is currently imprisoned in Egypt and another was killed in 2001 in Afghanistan. Only Zawahiri remains free and alive.
News of Hasan's death comes just days after al-Zawahiri appeared in a rare video message urging Arab armies to intervene in Libya to oust dictator Moammar Gadhafi before "Western aid... turns into invasions."
The hour-plus long video posted online is the first since Egypt's successful revolution and features the Osama bin Laden deputy in a white robe with the barrel of an assault rifle visible at his side. In addition to discussing the bloody fighting in Libya, al-Zawahiri, also an Egyptian native, celebrates the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and says that the continuation of the North African nation depends on the destruction of Israel and the establishment of Islamic law.
Source & Read More: ABC News
