Relatives of Ayman al-Zawahri, a top aide to alleged master terrorist Osama bin Laden, have published a death notice reporting the death of his wife and three children in Afghanistan.
The notice, in Cairo's Al-Ahram newspaper, confirmed earlier reports that the wife - Azza Anwar Nuwaira - and her children had been killed in a U-S bombing raid in Afghanistan. Although it gave no details on how the family died, it said they had been martyred.
On Wednesday, a Muslim activist in London reported the family was killed in a December 2nd raid on the former Taleban stronghold of Kandahar. There had been reports that reputed al-Qaida chief strategist - al-Zawahri - also was killed, but the same Muslim activist said he was unhurt.
Ayman al-Zawahri, an Egyptian medical doctor, associated himself with the Muslim militant group Islamic Jihad, rising to become its leader. He later merged it with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. In October, he was seen seated along side the fugitive bin Laden in a televised interview conducted by the Qatar based al-Jazeera network