Zawahiri's militant path surprised neighbours in Cairo suburb

Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was killed in a CIA drone strike in Afghanistan over the weekend according to U.S. officials, appears in an undated FBI Most Wanted poster. FBI/Handout via REUTERS

CAIRO (Reuters) - Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Kabul, seemed harmless to neighbours when he was a young man growing up in a leafy Cairo suburb.

"Years went by, and then all of a sudden we heard about Ayman al-Zawahiri doing all these things, he became something we would have never imagined," said Attia Salama, his former neighbour in the upscale Cairo suburb of Maadi.