Pakistan reportedly almost caught Zawahiri

CAIRO, Oct. 1 (UPI) -- Osama bin Laden's top deputy eluded Pakistani troops in the country's tribal areas after they got close to his hideout, another Islamist leader says.

In an interview with an Egyptian newspaper, al-Misriun, Naji Ibrahim, head of Jemaah Islamiyah, said that the Pakistani military discovered Ayman al-Zawahiri's base.

Both bin Laden and Zawahiri, the top leaders of al-Qaida, are believed to be living in the tribal areas in Pakistan near the frontier with Afghanistan. Much of the area is controlled by the Taliban, the group that ruled Afghanistan when bin Laden made the country his headquarters.

Zawahiri, a doctor who was born to a middle-class Egyptian family in a suburb of Cairo, became bin Laden's lieutenant in 1998 when he merged his organization, Egyptian Islamic Jihad into al-Qaida. The U.S. government has placed a $25 million price on his head.