INTELLIGENCE experts were scrutinising video footage of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda second in command, for clues yesterday to the whereabouts of the man vowing more terror attacks against Britain.

In a broadcast by al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite news channel, the man regarded as the brains behind Osama bin Laden’s organisation proved that he is still very active and has lost none of his rhetorical flair, nor his taste for deadly props.

Wearing a black turban, a freshly pressed white robe and seated with a Kalashnikov assault rifle at this side, the Egyptian-born doctor appeared fit and energetic as he poked an accusing finger at the West.

The statement was clearly filmed outdoors and the background obscured by a tarpaulin, presumably to prevent Western intelligence agencies recognising any distinguishing geographical features that might give away his location.

Al-Jazeera refused to reveal how it came by the footage, the latest in a long line of exclusives handed to the satellite channel by al-Qaeda’s propaganda unit.

Since he went on the run, after the overthrow of his Taleban allies in Afghanistan in 2001, al-Zawahiri, 54, is thought to have settled in the rugged region on the Pakistani border where al-Qaeda is still able to function with the help of sympathetic local tribes.

Compared with previous footage taken over the past four years, al-Zawahiri does appear to have aged. His beard was whiter, his face more lined and the dark callus on his forehead, formed from hours of prostrate prayer, more pronounced.

But unlike bin Laden, who has not been seen or heard of since his message to the American people on the eve of last November’s US presidential elections, al-Zawahiri appeared fit and well and was even wearing a new pair of spectacles.

“We believe he is hiding in Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan,” said a senior Arab intelligence officer, who has been monitoring him for two decades. “We are carefully watching him. He is very active and remains a real danger to the West and the Arab world.”

Certainly the $25 million reward offered by the FBI for his death or capture is well deserved. Al-Zawahiri has been associated with some of the most devastating terrorist operations of the past quarter century, including the 9/11 attacks and now possibly the London bombings as well.

He was born in 1951, the son of a respectable Egyptian family from a middle-class suburb of Cairo. His grandfather was the grand imam of the al-Azhar mosque in Cairo, the most important centre of Islamic learning in the Middle East. One of his uncles was the first secretary-general of the Arab League.

At first al-Zawahiri appeared to be destined to follow the family tradition when he built up a prominent medical clinic in a suburb of Cairo. But he was attracted to the banned Islamic political movement in Egypt and gained notoriety when he was rounded up with hundreds of other suspects and accused of membership of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, after the group assassinated President Anwar Sadat in 1981.

During the trial he displayed the leadership qualities that he would later put to such deadly effect. Shouting through the bars holding the defendants, he told the court in accented English: “We are Muslims who believe in our religion. We are trying to establish an Islamic state and Islamic society.”

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