WARSAW, July 16: Al Qaeda’s number two was trained by Russia’s secret service and served as a KGB agent before becoming Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man, a former KGB secret agent told Poland’s Rzeczpospolita newspaper on Saturday.

“Ayman al Zawahiri trained at a Federal Security Service (FSB, former KGB) base in Dagestan in 1998,” claimed ex-FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko, who fled Russia in 2000.

“He was then transferred to Afghanistan where he became Osama bin Laden’s deputy”, Mr Litvinenko told the newspaper.

“I was working in that section at the time and I can confirm the fact Zawahiri was not the only link between the FSB and Al Qaeda,” he said. —AFP