Internal rift led to Osama bin Laden killing: Saudi paper

American troops led to al-Qaeda Osama bin Laden by his own deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, because of a simmering internal power struggle, a Saudi newspaper reported Thursday. Al-Watan newspaper, quoting an unnamed "regional source," said the two men first al-Qaeda were differences and that the courier who led U.S. forces to Osama bin Laden worked for Zawahiri.


The courier was a citizen of Pakistan, not a Kuwaiti as the U.S. suspects Al-Watan said. The man knew he was being followed by the U.S. military, but the fact disguised.

"The faction of Egyptian Al-Qaeda is de facto running the organization now and since he fell ill in 2004, they tried to take total control," the document said.

He said Zawahiri faction persuaded bin Laden to leave the tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistan border and hide instead of Abbottabad, near Islamabad, where he was eventually killed by U.S. commandos on Monday.

With the return of an Egyptian figure of al-Qaeda, Saif al-Adel, the fall of Iran, the Egyptian faction had concocted a plan to dispose of Saudi-born bin Laden, according to Al-Watan.