CAIRO, Sept. 27 (UPI) -- Osama bin Laden was blinded in his right eye and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood as a youth, al-Qaida's new leader said in an Internet video.
Ayman as-Zawahiri, the terror group's leader after bin Laden was killed by Navy SEALs in a raid in Pakistan in 2010, confirmed bin Laden was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood as a youth in his native Saudi Arabia. He was expelled for insisting members perform jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, The Guardian reported about the video.
The Muslim Brotherhood, the newspaper notes, is the world's oldest Islamist organization. In recent years it has renounced violence and seeks political means to carry out members' fundamentalist intentions. It is the ruling party in Egypt and has substantial influence in Tunisia and Libya.
Zawahiri also revealed that bin Laden had spent most of his life unable to see out of his right eye. What caused the partial blindness is unknown.
Zawahiri is believed to be hiding in Pakistan's tribal regions. The video, published this week, is thought to be about 2 months old.
