Ayman al-Zawahiri Images

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Person Biography:(required) <p><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ayman al-Zawahiri, an eye surgeon who helped found the Egyptian Islamic Jihad militant group, is often referred to as Osama Bin Laden's right-hand man and the chief ideologue of al-Qaeda. </span></p> <p>He is believed by some experts to have been the "operational brains" behind the 11 September 2001 attacks in the United States.</p> <p><!-- E SF --></p> <p>He was number two - behind only Bin Laden - in the 22 Most Wanted Terrorists List announced by the US government in 2001 and has a $25m bounty on his head.</p> <p>Some experts even suggest Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad virtually took over al-Qaeda, when the two groups forged a coalition in the late 1990s.</p> <p>He was reportedly last seen in the eastern Afghan town of Khost in October 2001, and went into hiding after the US-led attack overthrew the Taleban.</p> <p>Various sources have said he may have escaped to North Africa or the Middle East, but US officials believe he is still hiding in the Afghan-Pakistan border area.</p> <p><strong>'Surrounded'</strong></p> <p>Often seen beside Bin Laden in videos released to Arab television networks, Zawahiri was also thought to have served as the al-Qaeda leader's personal physician.</p> <p>CIA officials said an audio tape aired on Arab television station in March 2004 - urging Pakistanis to overthrow President Pervez Musharraf - was probably the voice of Zawahiri.</p> <p>It came days after a major operation against al-Qaeda militants was launched by Pakistani troops in the South Waziristan tribal area, on the Afghan border.</p> <p>Initial speculation was that Zawahiri had been among al-Qaeda leaders surrounded by thousands of soldiers but he was never captured, and the army later conceded that many suspects may have escaped through a network of secret tunnels.</p> <p>Giles Foden, author of a book on the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, says even labelling Zawahiri as Bin Laden's right-hand man may understate his importance.</p> <p>He says some analysts believe Zawahiri has been controlling much of al-Qaeda's finance operations since the end of the war in Afghanistan.</p> <p>Zawahiri is named in European legislation on financial sanctions against the Taleban and in documents produced by the US sanctions body, the US Treasury's office for foreign assets control.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Distinguished family</strong></p> <p>Born in Egypt in 1951, Ayman al-Zawahiri, comes from a middle class family of doctors and scholars.</p> <p>His grandfather, Rabi'a al-Zawahiri, was the grand imam of Cairo's al-Azhar university, a centre of Islamic learning in the Arab world.</p> <p>He was already involved in Egypt's radical Muslim community when he was arrested at the age of 15 for being a member of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood - the Arab world's oldest fundamentalist group.</p> <p>He graduated from Cairo University's medical school in 1974 and obtained a masters degree in surgery four years later.</p> <p>His father, who died in 1995, was a pharmacology professor at the same school.</p> <p>Zawahiri's wife and children were reportedly killed in a US air strike in Afghanistan in late November or early December 2001.</p> <p><strong>Radical youth</strong></p> <p>Zawahiri was tried along with scores of radical Islamists for their part in the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat during a Cairo military parade.</p> <p>He was convicted and served a three-year sentence for illegal possession of arms. After his release, he left for Saudi Arabia.</p> <p>Soon afterwards he headed for Peshawar and later to neighbouring Afghanistan, where he established a faction of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad group.</p> <p>Zawahiri was in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation in 1970s and 1980s, working as a doctor.</p> <p>In 1997, the US state department named him as leader of the Vanguards of Conquest group - a faction of Islamic Jihad thought to have been behind the massacre of foreign tourists in Luxor the same year.</p> <p>Two years later, he was sentenced to death in absentia by an Egyptian court for activities linked to Islamic Jihad.</p> <p>Zawahiri reportedly spent six months in the Russian custody for his alleged extremist activities in the southern republic of Dagestan.</p> <p>But he was released as his name was not known to Russia's secret services.</p> <p><strong>Western targets</strong></p> <p>Zawahiri is believed to have lived in Denmark and Switzerland in the early 1990s, sometimes travelling on a false passport.</p> <p>Giles Foden says Zawahiri's freewheeling role across western Europe during the early 1990s raises questions about the security and asylum policies of a number of European nations and about their refusal to act on information provided by the Egyptian government.</p> <p>Zawahiri appeared in a video alongside Bin Laden threatening retaliation against the United States for the detention of the Egyptian Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.</p> <p>Then, in 1998, he was the second of five signatories to Bin Laden's notorious 1998 "fatwa" calling for attacks against US civilians.</p> <p>He is also listed on the US government's indictment sheet for the 1998 US embassy bombings.</p> <p>He was one of the figures whose satellite telephone conversations were used as proof that Bin Laden was behind the plot.</p> <p> </p> <p>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1560834.stm</p> <p><!-- E BO --><br clear="all" /></p>

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