RIYADH: US troops were led to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by his own deputy, Ayman Al-Zawahri, because of a simmering internal power struggle, a Saudi newspaper reported on Thursday.
Al-Watan newspaper, quoting an unnamed "regional source," said the top two Al-Qaeda men had differences and that a courier who led US forces to bin Laden was working for Al-Zawahri.
The courier was a Pakistan national and not a Kuwaiti as the US suspected, Al-Watan said. The man knew he was being followed by the US military but disguised the fact.
"The Egyptian faction of Al-Qaeda is defacto running the organization now and since he was taken ill in 2004 they have been trying to take full control," according to the paper.
It said Al-Zawahri’s faction had persuaded bin Laden to leave tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistan border and take shelter instead in Abbottabad near Islamabad where he was finally killed by US commandos on Monday.
With the return of an Egyptian figure in Al-Qaeda, Saif Al-Adel, last autumn from Iran, the Egyptian faction had hatched a plan to dispose of Saudi-born bin Laden, according to Al-Watan.
