Ayman al-Zawahiri

Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri,  أيمن محمد ربيع الظواهري‎ ʾAyman Muḥammad Rabī  born June 19, 1951 is an Egyptian Islamic theologian and current leader of al-Qaeda. He was previously the second and last "emir" of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, having succeeded Abbud al-Zumar in the latter role when Egyptian authorities sentenced al-Zumar to life imprisonment. His wife and three of his six children were killed in an air strike on Afghanistan by US forces in late 2001, following the September 11 attacks on the USA. As of May 2, 2011, he was assumed to be the figurehead of al-Qaeda following the death of Osama bin Laden. This was confirmed by a press release from al-Qaeda's general command on June 16. After the 9/11 attacks the U.S. State Department offered a $25 million reward for information leading to al-Zawahiri's apprehension.

al-Zawahiri is reportedly a qualified surgeon; when his organization merged with bin Laden's al-Qaeda, he became bin Laden's personal advisor and physician. He had first met bin Laden in Jeddah in 1986. al-Zawahiri has shown a radical understanding of Islamic theology and Islamic history. He speaks Arabic, English and French. He is under worldwide sanctions by the United Nations Security Council 1267 Committee as a member or affiliate of al-Qaeda.

In 1998, al-Zawahiri formally merged the Egyptian Islamic Jihad into al-Qaeda. According to reports by a former al-Qaeda member, he has worked in the al-Qaeda organization since its inception and was a senior member of the group's shura council. He was often described as a "lieutenant" to Osama bin Laden, though bin Laden's chosen biographer has referred to him as the "real brains" of al-Qaeda. On June 16, 2011, al-Qaeda announced that al-Zawahiri had been selected as bin Laden's successor as al-Qaeda's former leader had been killed in a US operation on May 2, 2011.

Biography

Upbringing and education

Ayman al-Zawahiri was born to a prominent upper middle class family in Maadi, Egypt, a suburb of Cairo, and was reportedly a studious youth. His father, Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri, came from a large family of doctors and scholars. Mohammed Rabie—a Muslim fanatic—became a surgeon, and a medical professor at Cairo University. Ayman al-Zawahiri's mother, Umayma Azzam, came from a wealthy, politically active clan. Ayman excelled in school, loved poetry, "hated violent sports"—which he thought were "inhumane"—and had a deep affection for his mother.

Ayman Zawahiri became both quite pious and political, under the influence of his uncle Mahfouz Azzam, and lecturer Mostafa Kamel Wasfi. Sayyid Qutb preached that to restore Islam and free Muslims, a vanguard of true Muslims modeling itself after the original Companions of the Prophet had to be developed.

By the age of 14, al-Zawahiri had joined the Muslim Brotherhood. The following year the Egyptian government executed Qutb for conspiracy, and al-Zawahiri, along with four other secondary school students, helped form an "underground cell devoted to overthrowing the government and establishing an Islamist state." It was at this early age that al-Zawahiri developed a mission in life, "to put Qutb's vision into action. His cell eventually merged with others to form al-Jihad or Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Al-Zawahiri graduated from Cairo University in 1974 with gayyid giddan. Following that he served three years as a surgeon in the Egyptian Army after which he established a clinic near his parents. In 1978, he also earned a master's degree in surgery.

Marriage and family

In 1978 he married his wife Azza Ahmed Nowari, who was studying philosophy at Cairo University.Their wedding, at the Continental Hotel in Opera Square, was very pious, with separate areas for both men and women, and no music, photographs, or light-hearted humour. Many years later, when the United States attacked Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks in 2001, Azza denied ever knowing that Zawahiri had been a jihadi emir (commander) for the last decade, although at least one acquaintance is skeptical of her ignorance of this fact.

The couple had four daughters, Fatima (b. 1981), Umayma, Nabila (b. 1986) and Khadiga (b. 1987), and a son Mohammed, who was a "delicate, well-mannered boy" and "the pet of his older sisters," subject to teasing and bullying in a traditional all-male environment who preferred to "stay at home and help his mother. Ten years after the birth of Mohammed, Azza gave birth to Aisha, who had Down syndrome. In February 2004, Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded, and subsequently stated that Abu Turab Al-Urduni had married one of al-Zawahiri's daughters.

Leaving Egypt

In 1985, al-Zawahiri went to Saudi Arabia on Hajj and stayed to practice medicine in Jeddah for a year.He was reported to have first met bin Laden there a little later in 1986.

He then traveled to Peshawar, Pakistan where he worked in a Red Crescent hospital treating wounded refugees. There he became friends with the Canadian Ahmed Khadr, and the two shared a number of conversations about the need for Islamic government and the needs of the Afghan people. During this time, al-Zawahiri also began reconstituting the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) along with other exiled militants. The group had "very loose ties to their nominal imprisoned leader, Abud al-Zumur."

In Peshwar, al-Zawahiri is thought to have become radicalized by other Al-Jihad members, abandoning his old strategy of a swift coup d'etat to change society from above, and embracing the idea of takfir. In 1991, EIJ broke with al-Zumur, and al-Zawahiri grabbed "the reins of power" to become EIJ leader.

Attacks in Egypt

In 1993 Zawahiri traveled to the United States, where he addressed several California mosques under his Abdul Mu'iz pseudonym, relying on his credentials from the Kuwaiti Red Crescent to raise money for Afghan children who had been injured by Soviet land mines—he only raised $2000.

For his trips through Western Europe, al-Zawahiri shaved off his beard and wore Western clothing.

One result of Zawahiri and EIJ's connection with Iran may have been the use of suicide bombing in August 1993 in an attempt on the life of Egyptian Interior Minister Hasan al-Alfi, the man heading the effort to quash the campaign of Islamist killings in Egypt. It failed, as did an attempt to assassinate Egyptian prime minister Atef Sidqi three months later. The bombing of Sidqi's car injured 21 Egyptians and killed a young schoolgirl, Shayma Abdel-Halim. It followed two years of killings by another Islamist group, al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, that had killed over 200 people. Her funeral became a public spectacle, with her coffin carried through the streets of Cairo and crowds shouting, "Terrorism is the enemy of God!" The police arrested 280 more of al-Jihad's members, and executed six.

Zawahiri later wrote of his anger with the public reaction. "This meant that they wanted my daughter, who was two at the time, and the daughters of other colleagues, to be orphans. Who cried or cared for our daughters?"

Formal appointment

Al-Zawahiri's succession to command of al-Qaeda was announced on several of their websites on June 16, 2011. On the same day, al-Qaeda renewed its position that Israel was an illegitimate state and that it would not accept any compromise on Palestine.

The delayed announcement led some analysts to speculate that there was quarreling within al-Qaeda. "It doesn't suggest a vast reservoir of accumulated goodwill for him," said one CNN analyst. Both U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen maintain that the delay did not signal any kind of dispute within al-Qaeda, and Mullen reiterated U.S. death threats toward al-Zawahiri. According to U.S. officials within the Obama administration and Robert Gates, Zawahiri would find the leadership difficult as, while intelligent, he lacks combat experience and the charisma of Osama bin Laden.

Terrorism analyst Magnus Ranstorp of the Swedish National Defence College said that, as al-Zawahiri did not have the same status or personality as bin Laden, he would focus on attacking the West to avenge bin Laden's death and to promote himself.

Views on female combatants

Zawahiri has said in an interview that the group does not have women combatants and that a woman's role is limited to caring for the homes and children of al-Qaeda fighters. This resulted in a debate regarding the role of mujahid women like Sajida al-Rishawi.