Defector: Putin's KGB trained top al-Qaeda terrorists.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, the reputed Number 2 chief in al-Qaeda and the man second only to Osama bin Laden on the FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorists" list, was trained by the Russian FSB (formerly known as the KGB). That's the story told by ex-FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, who fled Russia in 2000. According to Litvinenko, as reported in the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita, on July 17, "Ayman al-Zawahiri trained at a Federal Security Service (FSB, former KGB) base in Dagestan in 1998." "He was then transferred to Afghanistan," the defector says, "where he became Osama bin Laden's deputy."

Mr. Litvinenko's brief revelation in Rzeczpospolita provides confirmation for suspicions many counterterrorism analysts have held concerning al-Zawahiri, whom federal authorities have called the "mastermind of 9/11." As reported in THE NEW AMERICAN in 2001, al-Zawahiri had been very active as the purported top leader of Islamist terrorist operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina during Yugoslavia's civil war. Throughout that period, he operated from a special headquarters in Sofia, the capital of Communist-run Bulgaria, which had been for decades a primary surrogate for Soviet training and sponsorship of terrorism. It was apparent that the Russians were playing both sides in the conflict, ...