Bin Laden once belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood

Osama bin Laden was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood as a youth, al-Qaeda's new leader said in an Internet video. Ayman as-Zawahiri, the terror group's leader who took over after bin Laden was killed 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 excluded from the party in the eighties for trying to convince its members to become jihadists against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The Muslim Brotherhood is the world's oldest Islamist organisation. 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.