A key drive behind the 11 September 2001 assaults on the United States, Ayman al-Zawahiri spent a lot of the previous twenty years with a $25 million bounty on his head.
The bespectacled Egyptian physician was chief of al Qaeda for the second half of that interval. But he’s maybe higher identified for his earlier position as Number 2 to Osama bin Laden, the charismatic founding father of one of many world’s most infamous and barbaric terrorist organisations.
It was solely after bin Laden’s dying in a US particular forces raid in Pakistan in 2011 that Zawahiri took cost of the group, although he lacked the identical skill of his shut buddy and ally to encourage followers.
Al Qaeda, below his stewardship, struggled to make a lot influence particularly as its surviving leaders have been on the run or in hiding from US, British and different western counter-terrorism forces, whereas rival Islamist extremist teams have been rising, most notably Islamic State or ISIS, with a savvier method to social media and drawing in additional recruits.
Yet Zawahiri, 71, remained – till the weekend – essentially the most infamous Islamist militant to have escaped dying or seize since then US President George Bush launched his so-called “war on terror” following al Qaeda’s airliner carnage in Washington and New York.
It means his dying in a CIA drone strike in Kabul will likely be seen as a massively important second for the 1000’s of American and British spies and particular forces personnel who by no means stopped trying to find him as a part of their mission to disrupt and degrade al Qaeda and cease the group from ever once more posing a world menace.
“They never forget,” US President Joe Biden stated in an handle to the nation on Monday night, confirming the information that Zawahiri was lifeless. He additionally revealed that the phobia chief had relocated to “downtown Kabul” to reunite together with his household.
‘Comfortable upbringing’
Such a dangerous transfer is in stark distinction to the years Zawahiri spent taking each potential step to hide his location – one thing he’s largely thought-about to have achieved in Pakistan’s distant, tribal area bordering Afghanistan.
It may even point out {that a} massively controversial choice by the United States to drag its forces out of Afghanistan within the face of a resurgent Taliban a yr in the past inadvertently created the circumstances to lure Zawahiri out of the shadows. The Taliban has lengthy retained an in depth relationship with al Qaeda regardless of promising to sever ties as a part of the US withdrawal deal.
His demise in a covert drone strike in Afghanistan is a good distance from Zawahiri’s comfy beginnings.
He was born right into a middle-class household within the Maadi suburb of Cairo on 19 June 1951. Zawahiri’s father was a professor of pharmacology.
As an academically gifted scholar, the younger Zawahiri selected to learn medication on the University of Cairo. But he was additionally politically energetic, with more and more excessive views in opposition to the Egyptian authorities. He based the Jihad Group with quite a few followers.
A household man as properly, Zawahiri married a lady referred to as Azza Nowair and the couple went onto have six kids – one son and 5 daughters.
Meeting Osama bin Laden
He opened a medical observe however began to change into concerned in visiting refugee camps alongside the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, based on a profile on Zawahiri by the Washington Post.
Zawahiri used his medical coaching to are inclined to the injuries of Afghan mujahideen fighters who have been opposing the then Soviet-backed Afghan authorities.
It was throughout this time that he reportedly first met Saudi-born Osama bin Laden.
Turmoil again in Egypt after the then Egyptian president was killed in 1981 noticed Zawahiri arrested and detained for 3 years. During this time he stated that he was tortured.
After his launch he once more encountered bin Laden and successfully turned his private doctor in addition to an more and more trusted ally. An FBI Wanted Poster providing a bounty of as much as $25 million (£20.4m) for info on his whereabouts stated that Zawahiri glided by quite a few aliases, together with The Doctor and The Teacher.
It is believed that Zawahiri, described as a thinker slightly than a fighter, spent a variety of the Nineties travelling all over the world, together with to the United States, Bulgaria, Denmark and Sweden, utilizing false passports, searching for new sources of funding.
By 1997, he had settled within the southern Afghan metropolis of Jalalabad. The subsequent yr his militant group merged with bin Laden’s extra profitable al Qaeda – which is Arabic for “the base”.
Zawahiri is credited with serving to to supervise the planning of the 9/11 assaults in addition to different al Qaeda atrocities. He additionally reported initiated a failed try by the group to amass organic and nuclear weapons earlier than they have been compelled to go on the run by the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.
As bin Laden’s deputy, even whereas in hiding, Zawahiri appeared on quite a few movies uploaded onto web sites sympathetic to al Qaeda, spouting his terrorist views.
After his boss’s dying, although, and with friction in al Qaeda’s personal ranks in addition to amongst different Islamist extremist teams, Zawahiri adopted a decrease profile, with far fewer appearances.
Yet he remained as excessive a goal as ever for US counter-terrorism forces.
Source: information.sky.com”