CAIRO (AP) — Al-Qaeda has selected its longtime No. 2 to succeed Osama bin Laden following last month's U.S. commando raid that killed the terror leader, according to a statement posted Thursday on a website affiliated with the network.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, who will turn 60 next week, is believed to be operating from somewhere near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

He is the son of an upper middle class Egyptian family of doctors and scholars. His father was a pharmacology professor at Cairo University's medical school and his grandfather was the grand imam of Al-Azhar University, a premier center of religious study.

In a videotaped eulogy released earlier this month, al-Zawahiri warned that America faces not individual terrorists or groups but an international community of Muslims that seek to destroy it and its allies.

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