DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A few days ago, he was unknown, nearly unheard of even in his own country, Kuwait.
Now, Sulaiman abu Ghaith is suddenly on television screens throughout the world. The FBI and CIA are scrutinizing his every word. His government has disowned him.
Abu Ghaith has become the voice of Osama bin Laden. In three separate appearances during the past nine days, he has protested the U.S. bombing campaign against Afghanistan and delivered chilling predictions of future mayhem on behalf of Al Qaeda, the terrorist network Bin Laden heads.
Abu Ghaith's sudden rise to prominence, combined with the absence of any prior indication of his role, is another sign of how little is known about the mechanics and makeup of Bin Laden's inner circle.
"He was an unknown figure. There he was, suddenly, on TV," said Abdulrahman Awadi, a former high-ranking Kuwaiti government official. "We couldn't imagine how he reached so high a ranking."
As it turns out, Abu Ghaith exhibited earlier signs of radicalism. Until he left Kuwait for good about a year ago, he worked as a cleric at a local mosque. Friends have described him as an effective and emotional preacher who would sometimes cry when sermonizing about death.
But his fiery rhetoric also got him into trouble. The government banned him from the mosque after he strayed from officially approved religious themes. According to one report, he attacked the Kuwaiti Constitution, saying it belonged "under my shoe."
"He didn't stick to the script," said Mohammed Awadi, a friend and fellow cleric.
The stocky, bearded Abu Ghaith was born in 1965 and attended elementary and middle schools in an upscale suburb of Kuwait City. He graduated from Kuwait University with a degree in Islamic education in 1988.
Shortly afterward, he joined thousands of other Arabs headed to Afghanistan to take part in the Muslim guerrilla war against the Soviet occupation. Bin Laden was in Afghanistan helping to recruit and equip the so-called Afghan Arabs, but it is unclear whether the two met then.
Back in Kuwait, Abu Ghaith took to preaching and gained notoriety during the Persian Gulf War for his sermons urging attacks against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, whose forces had invaded the country. The United States and its allies succeeded in driving Hussein from Kuwait but did not remove him from power.
