Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri (June 19, 1951 – July 31, 2022) was an Egyptian-born
terrorist
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
and physician who served as the second
emir
Emir (; ar, أمير ' ), sometimes transliterated amir, amier, or ameer, is a word of Arabic origin that can refer to a male monarch, aristocrat, holder of high-ranking military or political office, or other person possessing actual or cer ...
of al-Qaeda from June 16, 2011, until his death.
Al-Zawahiri graduated from
Cairo University
Cairo University ( ar, جامعة القاهرة, Jāmi‘a al-Qāhira), also known as the Egyptian University from 1908 to 1940, and King Fuad I University and Fu'ād al-Awwal University from 1940 to 1952, is Egypt's premier public university ...
with a degree in medicine and a master's degree in surgery and was a surgeon by profession. He became a leading figure in the
Egyptian Islamic Jihad
The Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ, ar, الجهاد الإسلامي المصري), formerly called simply Islamic Jihad ( ar, الجهاد الإسلامي, links=no) and the Liberation Army for Holy Sites, originally referred to as al-Jihad, and ...
, an Egyptian Islamist organization, and eventually attained the rank of emir. He was imprisoned from 1981 to 1984 for his role in the assassination of Egyptian President
Anwar Sadat
Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat, (25 December 1918 – 6 October 1981) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the third president of Egypt, from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 ...
. His actions against the Egyptian government, including his planning of the 1995
attack on the Egyptian Embassy in Pakistan
Carried out by the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the 19 November 1995 attack on the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan was retaliation against the diplomatic staffers who were accused of gathering intelligence on Jihad factions inside Pakistan. ...
, resulted in him being sentenced to death ''
in absentia
is Latin for absence. , a legal term, is Latin for "in the absence" or "while absent".
may also refer to:
* Award in absentia
* Declared death in absentia, or simply, death in absentia, legally declared death without a body
* Election in ab ...
'' during the 1999 "
Returnees from Albania
The case of the Returnees from Albania was a massive criminal trial in an Egyptian military court from February to April 1999. The trial is one of the principal sources of information about Sunni terrorist groups in the 1990s, especially al-Gama'a ...
" trial.
A close associate of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, al-Zawahiri held significant sway over the group's operations. Al-Zawahiri was wanted by the United States and the United Nations, respectively, for his role in the
1998 U.S. embassy bombings
The 1998 United States embassy bombings were attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998. More than 200 people were killed in nearly simultaneous truck bomb explosions in two East African cities, one at the United States Embassy in Dar es Salaam ...
in Kenya and Tanzania and in the
2002 Bali bombings
The 2002 Bali bombings occurred on 12 October 2002 in the tourist district of Kuta on the Indonesian island of Bali. The attack killed 202 people (including 88 Australians, 38 Indonesians, 23 Britons, and people of more than 20 other national ...
. He merged the Egyptian Islamic Jihad with al-Qaeda in 2001 and formally became bin Laden's deputy in 2004. He succeeded bin Laden as al-Qaeda's leader after bin Laden's death in 2011. In May 2011, the U.S. announced a $25 million bounty for information leading to his capture.
On July 31, 2022, al-Zawahiri was killed in a U.S.
drone strike
Drone warfare is a form of aerial warfare using unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV) or weaponized commercial unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The United States, United Kingdom, Israel, China, South Korea, Iran, Italy, France, India, Pakist ...
in Afghanistan.
Personal life
Early life
Ayman al-Zawahiri was born June 19, 1951, in Giza, in what was then the
Kingdom of Egypt
The Kingdom of Egypt ( ar, المملكة المصرية, Al-Mamlaka Al-Miṣreyya, The Egyptian Kingdom) was the legal form of the Egyptian state during the latter period of the Muhammad Ali dynasty's reign, from the United Kingdom's recog ...
, to Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri and Umayma Azzam.
''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' in 2001 described al-Zawahiri as coming from "a prosperous and prestigious family that gives him a pedigree grounded firmly in both religion and politics". Al-Zawahiri's parents both came from prosperous families. Al-Zawahiri's father, Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri, came from a large family of doctors and scholars from Kafr Ash Sheikh Dhawahri, Sharqia, in which one of his grandfathers was Sheikh Muhammad al-Ahmadi al-Zawahiri (1887–1944) who was the 34th Grand Imam of al-Azhar. Mohammed Rabie became a surgeon and a professor of pharmacy at
Cairo University
Cairo University ( ar, جامعة القاهرة, Jāmi‘a al-Qāhira), also known as the Egyptian University from 1908 to 1940, and King Fuad I University and Fu'ād al-Awwal University from 1940 to 1952, is Egypt's premier public university ...
. Ayman Al-Zawahiri's mother, Umayma Azzam, came from a wealthy, politically active clan, the daughter of Abdel-Wahhab Azzam, a literary scholar who served as the president of Cairo University, the founder and inaugural rector of the
King Saud University
King Saud University (KSU, ar, جامعة الملك سعود) is a public university in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Established in 1957 by King Saud bin Abdulaziz to address the country's skilled worker shortage, it is the first university in the K ...
(the first university in
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
) as well as ambassador to
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...
, while his own brother was Azzam Pasha, the founding secretary-general of the Arab League (1945–1952). From his maternal side yet another relative was Salem Azzam, an Islamist intellectual and activist, for a time secretary-general of the ''Islamic Council of Europe'' based in London. The wealthy and prestigious family is also linked to the Red Sea Harbi tribe in Zawahir, a small town in Saudi Arabia, located in the
Badr Badr (Arabic: بدر) as a given name below is an Arabic masculine and feminine name given to the "full moon on its fourteenth night" or the ecclesiastical full moon.
Badr may refer to: .and it is also one of the oldest and rarest names in the Arabi ...
.
He also has a maternal link to the house of Saud: Muna, the daughter of Azzam Pasha (his maternal great-uncle), is married to
Mohammed bin Faisal Al Saud
Mohammed bin Faisal Al Saud ( ar, محمد بن فيصل آل سعود, ''Moḥammed bin Fayṣal Āl Saʿūd''; 1937–14 January 2017) was a Saudi prince and businessman. He was a son of King Faisal and was one of the pioneers in the establishm ...
, the son of the late King Faisal.
Ayman Al-Zawahiri said that he has a deep affection for his mother. Her brother, Mahfouz Azzam, became a role model for him as a teenager. He has a younger brother, Muhammad al-Zawahiri, and a twin sister, Heba Mohamed al-Zawahiri. Heba became a professor of
medical oncology
Oncology is a branch of medicine that deals with the study, treatment, diagnosis and prevention of cancer. A medical professional who practices oncology is an ''oncologist''. The name's etymological origin is the Greek word ὄγκος (''ó ...
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...
in 1998. He was arrested in the UAE in 1999, and sentenced to death in 1999 after being extradited to Egypt. He was held in
Tora Prison
Tora Prison ( arz, سجن طره '; ) is an Egyptian prison complex for criminal and political detainees, located in Tora, Egypt. The complex is situated in front of the Tora El Balad metro station. The main buildings in the Tora Prison complex a ...
in Cairo as a political detainee. Security officials said he was the head of the Special Action Committee of Islamic Jihad, which organized terrorist operations. After the Egyptian popular uprising in the spring of 2011, on March 17, 2011, he was released from prison by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the
interim government
A provisional government, also called an interim government, an emergency government, or a transitional government, is an emergency governmental authority set up to manage a political transition generally in the cases of a newly formed state or f ...
of Egypt. His lawyer said he had been held to extract information about his brother Ayman al-Zawahiri. On March 20, 2011, he was re-arrested. On August 17, 2013, Egyptian authorities arrested Muhammad al-Zawahiri at his home in Giza. He was acquitted in 2017.
Youth
Ayman al-Zawahiri was reportedly a studious youth. He excelled in school, loved poetry, and "hated violent sports", which he thought were "inhumane." Al-Zawahiri studied medicine at Cairo University and graduated in 1974 with '' gayyid giddan'', or roughly on par with a grade of "B" in the American grading system. Following that, he served 1974–1978 as a surgeon in the Egyptian Army after which he established a clinic near his parents in
Maadi
Maadi ( ar, المعادي / transliterated: ) is a leafy suburban district south of Cairo, Egypt, on the east bank of the Nile about upriver from downtown Cairo. The Nile at Maadi is parallelled by the Corniche, a waterfront promenade a ...
. In 1978, he also earned a master's degree in surgery. He spoke Arabic, English, and French.
Al-Zawahiri participated in
youth activism
Youth activism is the participation in community organizing for social change by persons between the ages of 15–24. Youth activism has led to a shift in political participation and activism. A notable shift within youth activism is the rise of ...
as a student. He became both quite pious and political, under the influence of his uncle Mahfouz Azzam, and lecturer Mostafa Kamel Wasfi.El-Zayyat, Montasser, "Qaeda", 2004. tr. by Ahmed Fakry
Sayyid Qutb
Sayyid 'Ibrāhīm Ḥusayn Quṭb ( or ; , ; ar, سيد قطب إبراهيم حسين ''Sayyid Quṭb''; 9 October 1906 – 29 August 1966), known popularly as Sayyid Qutb ( ar, سيد قطب), was an Egyptian author, educator, Islamic ...
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. Ayman al-Zawahiri was influenced by Qutb's Manichaean views on
Islamic theology
Schools of Islamic theology are various Islamic schools and branches in different schools of thought regarding '' ʿaqīdah'' (creed). The main schools of Islamic Theology include the Qadariyah, Falasifa, Jahmiyya, Murji'ah, Muʿtazila, Batin ...
By the age of 15, al-Zawahiri had formed an underground cell with the goal to overthrow the government and establish an Islamist state. The following year the Egyptian government executed
Sayyid Qutb
Sayyid 'Ibrāhīm Ḥusayn Quṭb ( or ; , ; ar, سيد قطب إبراهيم حسين ''Sayyid Quṭb''; 9 October 1906 – 29 August 1966), known popularly as Sayyid Qutb ( ar, سيد قطب), was an Egyptian author, educator, Islamic ...
for
conspiracy
A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agre ...
. Following the execution, 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
Mission (from Latin ''missio'' "the act of sending out") may refer to:
Organised activities Religion
*Christian mission, an organized effort to spread Christianity
*Mission (LDS Church), an administrative area of The Church of Jesus Christ of ...
in life, "to put
Qutb
Qutb, Qutub, Kutb, Kutub or Kotb ( ar, قطب), means 'axis', 'pivot' or 'pole'. Qutb can refer to celestial movements and be used as an astronomical term or a spiritual symbol. In Sufism, a Qutb is the perfect human being, ''al-Insān al-Kā ...
's vision into action." His cell eventually merged with others to form al-Jihad or
Egyptian Islamic Jihad
The Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ, ar, الجهاد الإسلامي المصري), formerly called simply Islamic Jihad ( ar, الجهاد الإسلامي, links=no) and the Liberation Army for Holy Sites, originally referred to as al-Jihad, and ...
.Wright, p. 42.
Marriages and children
Ayman al-Zawahiri was married at least four times. His wives include Azza Ahmed Nowari and Umaima Hassan.
In 1978, al-Zawahiri married his first wife, Azza Ahmed Nowari, a student at Cairo University who was studying philosophy. Their wedding, which was held at the Continental Hotel in Opera Square, was very conservative, with separate areas for both men and women, and no music, photographs, or gaiety in general. Many years later, when the United States attacked Afghanistan following the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...
in October 2001, Azza apparently had no idea that al-Zawahiri had supposedly been a jihadi emir (commander) for the last decade.
Al-Zawahiri and his wife, Azza, had four daughters, Fatima (born 1981), Umayma (born 1983), Nabila (born 1986), and Khadiga (born 1987), and a son, Mohammed (also born in 1987; the twin brother of Khadiga), who was a "delicate, well-mannered boy" and "the pet of his older sisters," subject to teasing and bullying in a traditionally all-male environment, who preferred to "stay at home and help his mother." In 1997, ten years after the birth of Mohammed, Azza gave birth to their fifth daughter, Aisha, who had
Down syndrome
Down syndrome or Down's syndrome, also known as trisomy 21, is a genetic disorder caused by the presence of all or part of a third copy of chromosome 21. It is usually associated with physical growth delays, mild to moderate intellectual dis ...
. In February 2004,
Abu Zubaydah
Abu Zubaydah ( ; , ''Abū Zubaydah''; born March 12, 1971, as Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn) is a Saudi Arabian currently held by the U.S. in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. He is held under the authority of Authorization for Use o ...
was waterboarded and subsequently stated that Abu Turab Al-Urduni had married one of al-Zawahiri's daughters.
Ayman al-Zawahiri's first wife Azza and two of their six children, Mohammad and Aisha, were killed in an airstrike on
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
by US forces in late December 2001, following the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...
on the U.S. After an American aerial bombardment of a Taliban-controlled building at
Gardez
, settlement_type =City
, image_skyline =gardez_paktya.jpg
, imagesize =
, image_caption =The Bala Hesar fortress in the center of Gardez City
, image_flag =
, flag_size =
, image_sea ...
, Azza was pinned under the debris of a guesthouse roof. Concerned for her modesty, she "refused to be excavated" because "men would see her face" and she died from her injuries the following day. Her son, Mohammad, was also killed outright in the same house. Her four-year-old daughter with Down syndrome, Aisha, had not been hurt by the bombing, but died from exposure in the cold night while Afghan rescuers tried to save Azza.
In the first half of 2005, one of Al-Zawahiri's three surviving wives gave birth to a daughter, named Nawwar.
In June 2012, one of al-Zawahiri's four wives, Umaima Hassan, released a statement on the internet congratulating the role played by Muslim
women in the Arab Spring
Women played a variety of roles in the Arab Spring, but its impact on women and their rights is unclear. The Arab Spring was a series of demonstrations, protests, and civil wars against authoritarian regimes that started in Tunisia and spread to ...
. She is also known to have written a leaflet explaining women's role in jihad.
Medical career
In 1981, Ayman al-Zawahiri traveled to
Peshawar
Peshawar (; ps, پېښور ; hnd, ; ; ur, ) is the sixth most populous city in Pakistan, with a population of over 2.3 million. It is situated in the north-west of the country, close to the International border with Afghanistan. It is ...
, Pakistan, where he worked in a
Red Crescent
The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million Volunteering, volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure re ...
hospital treating wounded refugees. There, he became friends with Ahmed Khadr, and the two shared a number of conversations about the need for Islamic government and the needs of the Afghan people.
Michelle Shephard
Michelle Shephard (born 1972) is an independent investigative reporter (previously with the ''Toronto Star'' newspaper), author and filmmaker.
She has been awarded the Michener Award for public service journalism and won Canada's top newspaper p ...
, "Guantanamo's Child", 2008.
Ayman al-Zawahiri worked as a surgeon. In 1985, al-Zawahiri went to Saudi Arabia on Hajj and stayed to practice medicine in Jeddah for a year. As a reportedly 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. According to other sources, they met the first time in 1986 at a hospital in Peshawar.
In 1993, al-Zawahiri traveled to the United States, where he addressed several mosques in California under his ''Abdul Mu'iz''
pseudonym
A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...
, relying on his credentials from the Kuwaiti
Red Crescent
The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million Volunteering, volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure re ...
to raise money for Afghan children who had been injured by Soviet
land mine
A land mine is an explosive device concealed under or on the ground and designed to destroy or disable enemy targets, ranging from combatants to vehicles and tanks, as they pass over or near it. Such a device is typically detonated automati ...
s—he raised only $2000.
Militant activity
Assassination plots
Egypt
In 1981, Al-Zawahiri was one of hundreds arrested following the
assassination of President Anwar Sadat
Anwar Sadat, the 3rd President of Egypt, was assassinated on 6 October 1981 during the annual victory parade held in Cairo to celebrate Operation Badr, during which the Egyptian Army had crossed the Suez Canal and taken back a small part of ...
. Initially, the plan was derailed when authorities were alerted to Al-Jihad's plan by the arrest of an operative carrying crucial information, in February 1981. President
Sadat
Sadat ( ar, سادات) is a suffix, which is given to families believed to be descendants of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. In Iran, after the revolution, it is mandatory to mention "Seyed" or "Sadat" in the names of or whose descent from Muham ...
ordered the roundup of more than 1,500 people, including many Al-Jihad members, but missed a cell in the military led by Lieutenant
Khalid Islambouli
Khalid Ahmed Showky El Islambouli ( ar, خالد أحمد شوقي الإسلامبولي, ) (15 January 1955 – 15 April 1982) was an Egyptian army officer who planned and participated in the Assassination of Anwar Sadat, assassination of Egyp ...
, who succeeded in assassinating Sadat during a military parade that October. His lawyer, Montasser el-Zayat, said that al-Zawahiri was tortured in prison.
In his book, ''Al-Zawahiri as I Knew Him'', Al-Zayat maintains that under torture by the Egyptian police, following his arrest in connection with the murder of Sadat in 1981, Al-Zawahiri revealed the hiding place of Essam al-Qamari, a key member of the Maadi cell of al-Jihad, which led to Al-Qamari's "arrest and eventual execution." He was released from prison in 1984.
In 1993, al-Zawahiri's and Egyptian Islamic Jihad's ( EIJ) connection with
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
may have led to a suicide bombing 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 schoolgirl, Shayma Abdel-Halim. It followed two years of killings by another Islamist group,
al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya
( ar, الجماعة الإسلامية, "the Islamic Group"; also transliterated El Gama'a El Islamiyya; also called "Islamic Groups" and transliterated Gamaat Islamiya, al Jamaat al Islamiya, is an Egyptian Sunni Islamist movement, and ...
, that had killed over 200 people. Her funeral became a public spectacle, with her coffin carried through the streets of
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...
and crowds shouting, "Terrorism is the enemy of God!"Wright, p. 186. The police arrested 280 more of al-Jihad's members and executed six.
For their leading role in anti-Egyptian Government attacks in the 1990s, al-Zawahiri and his brother Muhammad al-Zawahiri were sentenced to death in the 1999 Egyptian case of the
Returnees from Albania
The case of the Returnees from Albania was a massive criminal trial in an Egyptian military court from February to April 1999. The trial is one of the principal sources of information about Sunni terrorist groups in the 1990s, especially al-Gama'a ...
Egyptian Islamic Jihad
The Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ, ar, الجهاد الإسلامي المصري), formerly called simply Islamic Jihad ( ar, الجهاد الإسلامي, links=no) and the Liberation Army for Holy Sites, originally referred to as al-Jihad, and ...
under al-Zawahiri's leadership, but Bin Laden had disapproved of the operation. The bombing alienated Pakistan, which was "the best route into Afghanistan".
In July 2007, Al-Zawahiri supplied direction for the
Lal Masjid siege
The siege of Lal Masjid ( ur, , code-named Operation Sunrise) was a confrontation in July 2007 between Islamist students & fundamentalist militants and the Government of Pakistan, led by President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shauk ...
, codename Operation Silence. This was the first confirmed time that Al-Zawahiri was taking militant steps against the Pakistani Government and guiding Islamic militants against the State of Pakistan. The Pakistan Army troops and Special Service Group taking control of the Lal Masjid ("Red Mosque") in
Islamabad
Islamabad (; ur, , ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's ninth-most populous city, with a population of over 1.2 million people, and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital ...
found letters from al-Zawahiri directing
Islamic militants
''Mujahideen'', or ''Mujahidin'' ( ar, مُجَاهِدِين, mujāhidīn), is the plural form of ''mujahid'' ( ar, مجاهد, mujāhid, strugglers or strivers or justice, right conduct, Godly rule, etc. doers of jihād), an Arabic term t ...
Abdul Rashid Ghazi
Abdul Rashid Ghazi ( ur, عبد الرشید غازی; – 10 July 2007) was a Pakistani Islamic fundamentalist who served as the vice-chancellor of Faridia University. Prior to his radicalisation, he served as a diplomat for UNESCO. He was ...
and Abdul Aziz Ghazi, who ran the mosque and adjacent madrasah. This conflict resulted in 100 deaths.
On December 27, 2007, al-Zawahiri was also implicated in the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
Sudan
In 1994, the sons of
Ahmad Salama Mabruk
Ahmad Salama Mabruk ( ar, الشيخ أحمد سلامة مبروك; 1956 – 3 October 2016), known as Abu Faraj al-Masri ( ar, أبو الفرج المصري), was a senior leader in the Syrian militant group Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and was previ ...
and Mohammed Sharaf were executed under al-Zawahiri's leadership for betraying
Egyptian Islamic Jihad
The Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ, ar, الجهاد الإسلامي المصري), formerly called simply Islamic Jihad ( ar, الجهاد الإسلامي, links=no) and the Liberation Army for Holy Sites, originally referred to as al-Jihad, and ...
; the militants were ordered to leave the Sudan.Sageman, Marc, ''Understanding Terror Networks'', University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004, p. 45.
United States
In 1998, Ayman al-Zawahiri was listed as under indictment in the United States for his role in the
1998 U.S. embassy bombings
The 1998 United States embassy bombings were attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998. More than 200 people were killed in nearly simultaneous truck bomb explosions in two East African cities, one at the United States Embassy in Dar es Salaam ...
: a series of attacks on August 7, 1998, in which hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous
truck bomb
A car bomb, bus bomb, lorry bomb, or truck bomb, also known as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED), is an improvised explosive device designed to be detonated in an automobile or other vehicles.
Car bombs can be roughly divided ...
explosions at the United States
embassies
A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually deno ...
in the major East African cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and
Nairobi
Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city proper h ...
, Kenya.
In 2000, the USS ''Cole'' bombing encouraged several members to depart. Mohammed Atef escaped to Kandahar, al-Zawahiri to Kabul, and Bin Laden also fled to Kabul, later joining Atef when he realised no American reprisal attacks were forthcoming.
On October 10, 2001, al-Zawahiri appeared on the initial list of the U.S.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
. In early November 2001, the
Taliban
The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pasht ...
government announced they were bestowing official Afghan
citizenship
Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection".
Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
on him, as well as Bin Laden, Mohammed Atef, Saif al-Adl, and Shaykh
Asim Abdulrahman
The son of Omar Abdur Rahman, Asim Abdulrahman was described as "among the closest" of Osama bin Laden's followers in the days following the September 11th attacks in 2001.
Under the kunya ''Abu Asim'', he was believed to lead an Egyptian militan ...
.
Organizations
Egyptian Islamic Jihad
Al-Zawahiri began reconstituting the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) along with other exiled militants.
In Peshwar, al-Zawahiri was thought to have become
radicalized
Radicalization (or radicalisation) is the process by which an individual or a group comes to adopt increasingly views in opposition to a political, social, or religious status quo. The ideas of society at large shape the outcomes of radicaliza ...
by other Al-Jihad members, abandoning his old strategy of a swift coup d'état to change society from above, and embracing the idea of
takfir
''Takfir'' or ''takfīr'' ( ar, تكفير, takfīr) is an Arabic and Islamic term which denotes excommunication from Islam of one Muslim by another, i.e. accusing another Muslim to be an apostate. The word is found neither in the Quran nor in the ...
. In 1991, EIJ broke with al-Zumur, and al-Zawahiri grabbed "the reins of power" to become EIJ leader.
Ayman al-Zawahiri was previously the second and last "
emir
Emir (; ar, أمير ' ), sometimes transliterated amir, amier, or ameer, is a word of Arabic origin that can refer to a male monarch, aristocrat, holder of high-ranking military or political office, or other person possessing actual or cer ...
" of the
Egyptian Islamic Jihad
The Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ, ar, الجهاد الإسلامي المصري), formerly called simply Islamic Jihad ( ar, الجهاد الإسلامي, links=no) and the Liberation Army for Holy Sites, originally referred to as al-Jihad, and ...
, having succeeded
Abbud al-Zumar
Aboud El Zomor ''(also ''Abboud el-Zumar'', ''Abbud el-Zumar'', ''Aboud el-Zomoor'', ''Abboud el-Zomor'', ''Abboud el-Zomor'', ''Abod Zoummar'' '', arz, عبود الزمر, Abbud el-Zummor, , born August 1948) is an Egyptian Islamist and fundam ...
in the latter role when Egyptian authorities sentenced al-Zumar to life imprisonment. Ayman al-Zawahiri eventually became one of
Egyptian Islamic Jihad
The Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ, ar, الجهاد الإسلامي المصري), formerly called simply Islamic Jihad ( ar, الجهاد الإسلامي, links=no) and the Liberation Army for Holy Sites, originally referred to as al-Jihad, and ...
's leading organizers and recruiters. Al-Zawahiri's hope was to recruit military officers and accumulate weapons, waiting for the right moment to launch "a complete overthrow of the existing order."Wright, p. 49.Chief strategist of Al-Jihad was Aboud al-Zumar, a colonel in the military intelligence whose plan was to kill the main leaders of the country, capture the headquarters of the army and State Security, the telephone exchange building, and of course the radio and television building, where news of the Islamic revolution would then be broadcast, unleashing – he expected – "a popular uprising against secular authority all over the country."
Maktab al-Khadamat
In
Peshawar
Peshawar (; ps, پېښور ; hnd, ; ; ur, ) is the sixth most populous city in Pakistan, with a population of over 2.3 million. It is situated in the north-west of the country, close to the International border with Afghanistan. It is ...
Maktab al-Khadamat
The ''Maktab al-Khidamat'' () was an Arab charitable organization founded in 1984 by Abdullah Azzam, Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and other volunteers during the Soviet–Afghan War, It raised funds and recruited foreign mujahideen for the ...
(MAK); founded by the
Palestinian
Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
Sheikh
Abdullah Yusuf Azzam
Abdullah Yusuf Azzam ( ar, عبد الله يوسف عزام, translit=‘Abdu’llāh Yūsuf ‘Azzām; ) was a Salafi jihadist, a Palestinian scholar, and theologian of Sunni Islam. During the Soviet–Afghan War of the 1980s, he advocated " ...
. The radical position of al-Zawahiri and the other militants of Al-Jihad put them at odds with Sheikh Azzam, with whom they competed for bin Laden's financial resources. Al-Zawahiri carried two false passports, a Swiss one in the name of Amin Uthman and a Dutch one in the name of Mohmud Hifnawi.
Canadian Security Intelligence Service
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS, ; french: Service canadien du renseignement de sécurité, ''SCRS'') is Canada's primary national intelligence agency. It is responsible for collecting, analysing, reporting and disseminating int ...
Jason Burke
Jason Burke (born 1970) is a British journalist and the author of several non-fiction books. A correspondent covering Africa for ''The Guardian'', he is currently based in Johannesburg, having previously been based in New Delhi as the same paper' ...
wrote: "Al-Zawahiri ran his own operation during the Afghan war, bringing in and training volunteers from the Middle East. Some of the $500 million the
CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
poured into Afghanistan reached his group."
Former
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...
agent
Ali Soufan
Ali H. Soufan (born 1971) is a Lebanese-American former FBI agent who was involved in a number of high-profile anti-terrorism cases both in the United States and around the world. A 2006 ''New Yorker'' article described Soufan as coming close ...
mentioned in his book ''The Black Banners'' that Ayman al-Zawahiri is suspected of ordering Azzam's assassination in 1989.
Al-Qaeda
According to reports by a former al-Qaeda member, al-Zawahiri worked in the al-Qaeda organization since its inception and was a senior member of the group's ''
shura
Shura ( ar, شُورَىٰ, translit=shūrā, lit=consultation) can for example take the form of a council or a referendum. The Quran encourages Muslims to decide their affairs in consultation with each other.
Shura is mentioned as a praisewort ...
'' 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 February 23, 1998, al-Zawahiri issued a joint fatwa with Osama bin Laden under the title " World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders". Al-Zawahiri, not bin Laden, is thought to have been the actual author of the fatwa.
Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri organized an al-Qaeda congress on June 24, 1998. A week prior to the beginning of the conference, a group of well-armed assistants to al-Zawahiri had left by jeeps in the direction of Herat. Following the instructions of their patron, in the town of Koh-i-Doshakh, they met three unknown Slavic-looking men who had arrived from Russia via Iran. After their arrival in Kandahar, they split up. One of the Russians was directly escorted to al-Zawahiri and he did not participate in the conference. Western
military intelligence
Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist commanders in their decisions. This aim is achieved by providing an assessment of data from a ...
succeeded in acquiring photographs of him, but he disappeared for six years. According to Axis Globe, in 2004, when Qatar and the U.S. investigated Russian embassy officials whom the United Arab Emirates had arrested in connection to the murder of
in Qatar, computer software precisely established that a man who had walked to the Russian embassy in Doha was the same one who visited al-Zawahiri prior to the Al-Qaida conference.
Al-Zawahiri was placed under
international sanctions
International sanctions are political and economic decisions that are part of diplomatic efforts by countries, multilateral or regional organizations against states or organizations either to protect national security interests, or to protect in ...
in 1999 by the United Nations'
Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee
The ISIL (Da'esh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee is a committee of the United Nations Security Council tasked with implementing international sanctions against the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. It was established as the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanct ...
as a member of the Salafi-jihadist group al-Qaeda.
In June 2001, al-Zawahiri formally merged the
Egyptian Islamic Jihad
The Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ, ar, الجهاد الإسلامي المصري), formerly called simply Islamic Jihad ( ar, الجهاد الإسلامي, links=no) and the Liberation Army for Holy Sites, originally referred to as al-Jihad, and ...
into al-Qaeda.
In late 2001, a computer was seized that was stolen from an office used by al-Qaeda immediately after the fall of Kabul in November. This computer was mainly used by al-Zawahiri and contained the letter with an interview request for Ahmad Shah Massoud. The journalists who conducted the interview assassinated Massoud on September 9, 2001.
= Emergence as al-Qaeda's chief commander
=
In late 2004 bin Laden named al-Zawahiri officially as his deputy. On April 30, 2009, the U.S. State Department reported that al-Zawahiri had emerged as al-Qaeda's operational and strategic commander, and that Osama bin Laden was now only the ideological figurehead of the organization. After the 2011 death of bin Laden, a senior U.S. intelligence official said intelligence gathered in the raid showed that bin Laden remained deeply involved in planning: "This compound (where bin Laden was killed) in Abbottabad was an active command-and-control center for al-Qaeda's leader. He was active in operational planning and in driving tactical decisions within al-Qaeda."
Following the death of bin Laden, former U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism
Juan Zarate
Juan Carlos Zarate is an American attorney and security advisor who served as the deputy national security advisor for combating terrorism during the George W. Bush administration. He is the chairman and co-founder of the Financial Integrity Netw ...
said that al-Zawahiri would "clearly assume the mantle of leadership" of al-Qaeda. A senior U.S. administration official said that although al-Zawahiri was likely to be al-Qaeda's next leader, his authority was not "universally accepted" among al-Qaeda's followers, particularly in the Gulf region. Zarate said that al-Zawahiri was more controversial and less charismatic than bin Laden. Rashad Mohammad Ismail (AKA "Abu Al-Fida"), a leading member of
al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula ( ar-at, تنظيم القاعدة في جزيرة العرب, Tanẓīm al-Qā‘idah fī Jazīrat al-‘Arab, lit=Organization of the Base in the Arabian Peninsula or , ''Tanẓīm Qā‘idat al-Jihād fī Jaz ...
, stated that al-Zawahiri was the best candidate.
Hamid Mir
Hamid Mir ( ur, حامد میر; born 23 July 1966) is a Pakistani journalist, columnist and writer. Born in Lahore to a journalistic family, Mir initially worked as a journalist with Pakistani newspapers. He has hosted the political talk show ' ...
is reported to have said that he believed that Ayman al-Zawahiri was the operational head of al-Qaeda, and that " is the person who can do the things that happened on September 11." Within days of the attacks, al-Zawahiri's name was put forward as bin Laden's second-in-command, with reports suggesting he represented "a more formidable US foe than bin Laden."
= Formal appointment
=
Al-Zawahiri became the leader of al-Qaeda following the May 2, 2011
killing of Osama bin Laden
On May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden, the founder and first leader of the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda, was shot several times and killed at his compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, by United States Navy SEALs of the U.S. Naval S ...
. His succession to that role 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 celebrity journalist on
CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
Robert Gates
Robert Michael Gates (born September 25, 1943) is an American intelligence analyst and university president who served as the 22nd United States secretary of defense from 2006 to 2011. He was originally appointed by president George W. Bush a ...
Mike Mullen
Mike may refer to:
Animals
* Mike (cat), cat and guardian of the British Museum
* Mike the Headless Chicken, chicken that lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off
* Mike (chimpanzee), a chimpanzee featured in several books and document ...
maintain that the delay didn't signal any kind of dispute within al-Qaeda, and Mullen reiterated U.S. death threats toward al-Zawahiri. According to US officials within the
Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
administration and Robert Gates, al-Zawahiri would find the leadership difficult as, while intelligent, he lacks combat experience and the charisma of Osama bin Laden.
Activities in Iran
Al-Zawahiri allegedly worked with the Islamic Republic of Iran on behalf of al-Qaeda. Author
Lawrence Wright
Lawrence Wright (born August 2, 1947) is an American writer and journalist, who is a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' magazine, and fellow at the Center for Law and Security at the New York University School of Law. Wright is best known as th ...
reports that EIJ operative Ali Mohammed "told the FBI that al-Jihad had planned a coup in Egypt in 1990." Al-Zawahiri had studied the 1979 Islamist Islamic Revolution and "sought training from the Iranians" as to how to duplicate their feat against the Egyptian government.
In public, al-Zawahiri harshly denounced the Iranian government. In December 2007, he said, "We discovered Iran collaborating with America in its invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq." In the same video messages, he moreover chides Iran for "repeating the ridiculous joke that says that al-Qaida and the Taliban are agents of America," before playing a video clip in which
Ayatollah Rafsanjani
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani ( fa, اکبر هاشمی رفسنجانی, Akbar Hāshemī Rafsanjānī, born Akbar Hashemi Bahramani, 25 August 1934 – 8 January 2017) was an Iranian politician, writer, and one of the founding fathers of the Islam ...
says, "In Afghanistan, they were present in Afghanistan, because of Al-Qa'ida; and the Taliban, who created the Taliban? America is the one who created the Taliban, and America's friends in the region are the ones who financed and armed the Taliban."
Al-Zawahiri's criticism of Iran's government continues when he states,
Al-Zawahiri said that "Iran stabbed a knife into the back of the Islamic Nation."
In April 2008, al-Zawahiri blamed Iranian state media and
Al-Manar
Al-Manar ( ar, المنار, ''al-Manār'', lit='' The Lighthouse'') is a Lebanese satellite television station owned and operated by the political party Hezbollah,
for perpetuating the "lie" that "there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no-one else did in history" in order to discredit the Al Qaeda network. Al-Zawahiri was referring to some
9/11 conspiracy theories
9/11 conspiracy theory, conspiracy theories attribute the preparation and execution of the September 11 attacks against the United States to parties other than, or in addition to, al-Qaeda. These include the theory that high-level government ...
that claim that Al Qaeda was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
On the seventh anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, al-Zawahiri released a 90-minute tape in which he
blasted
''Blasted'' is the first play by the British author Sarah Kane. It was first performed in 1995 at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in London.
Synopsis
The play is set in an expensive hotel room in Leeds. Ian, a foul-mouthed middle-aged tabloid ...
"the guardian of Muslims in Tehran" for recognizing "the two hireling governments" in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Activities in Russia
At some point in 1994, al-Zawahiri was said to have "become a phantom"Wright, p. 250. but is thought to have traveled widely to "Switzerland and
Sarajevo
Sarajevo ( ; cyrl, Сарајево, ; ''see names in other languages'') is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its administrative limits. The Sarajevo metropolitan area including Sarajevo ...
". A fake passport he was using shows that he traveled to
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
,
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
On December 1, 1996,
Ahmad Salama Mabruk
Ahmad Salama Mabruk ( ar, الشيخ أحمد سلامة مبروك; 1956 – 3 October 2016), known as Abu Faraj al-Masri ( ar, أبو الفرج المصري), was a senior leader in the Syrian militant group Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and was previ ...
and
Mahmud Hisham al-Hennawi Mahmud Hisham al-Hennawi (محمود هشام محمد مصطفى الحناوي), also known by his kunya ''Abu Sahl'', was an Islamic militant with ties to the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and later Al-Qaeda. He was killed in Chechnya in 2005.
Early ...
– both carrying false passports – accompanied al-Zawahiri on a trip to Chechnya, where they hoped to re-establish the faltering Jihad. Their leader was traveling under the
pseudonym
A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...
''Abdullah Imam Mohammed Amin'', and trading on his medical credentials for legitimacy. The group switched vehicles three times, but were arrested within hours of entering Russian territory and spent five months in a
prison awaiting trial. The trio pleaded innocence, maintaining their disguise while other al-Jihad members from ''Bavari-C'' sent the Russian authorities pleas for leniency for their "merchant" colleagues who had been wrongly arrested. Russian Member of Parliament
Nadyr Khachiliev
Nadirshakh Mugadovich "Nadir" Khachilayev (russian: Надиршах Мугадович Хачилаев, alternatively Nadyr Khachiliev, Nadir Khachiliev,; 1959–2003) was a Russian politician, member of the 2nd State Duma, lower house of the ...
echoed the pleas for their speedy release as al-Jihad members
Ibrahim Eidarous
Ibrahim Hussein Abdel Hadi Eidarous () (c. 1957 – July 2008) was an Egyptian militant who was alleged to have led the London-based chapter of al-Jihad. He was held in the custody of the United Kingdom from 1999,
and
Tharwat Salah Shehata
Thirwat Salah Shehata (ثروت صالح شحاته) (also ''Tarwat Salah Abdallah'') (born June 29, 1960) is a core member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Married to the sister of Mahmoud Jaballah, Shehata served as Jaballah's lawyer in Egypt.
al-Jih ...
traveled to Dagestan to plead for their release. Shehata received permission to visit the prisoners. He is believed to have smuggled $3000 to them, which was later confiscated, and to have given them a letter which the Russians didn't bother to translate. In April 1997 the trio were sentenced to six months, were subsequently released a month later, and absconded without paying their court-appointed attorney Abulkhalik Abdusalamov his $1,800 legal fee, citing "poverty".
The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
, "Saga of Dr. Zawahri Sheds Light On the Roots of al Qaeda Terror". Shehata was sent on to Chechnya where he met with Ibn Khattab.
There have been doubts as to the true nature of al-Zawahiri's encounter with the Russians in 1996.
Jamestown Foundation
The Jamestown Foundation is a Washington, D.C.-based conservative defense policy think tank. Founded in 1984 as a platform to support Soviet defectors, its stated mission today is to inform and educate policy makers about events and trends, which ...
scholar Evgenii Novikov has argued that it seems unlikely that the Russians would not have been able to determine who he was, given Russia's well-trained Arabists and the suspicious acts of Muslims crossing borders illegally with multiple Arabic false identities and encrypted documents. Assassinated former FSBsecret service officer
Alexander Litvinenko
Alexander Valterovich "Sasha" Litvinenko (30 August 1962 ( at WebCite) or 4 December 1962 – 23 November 2006) was a British-naturalised Russian defector and former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) who specialised ...
alleged, among other things, that during this time al-Zawahiri was trained by the FSB and that he was not the only link between al-Qaeda and the FSB. Former
KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
officer,
Voice of America
Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is the state-owned news network and international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. It is the largest and oldest U.S.-funded international broadcaster. VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content ...
commentator and writer Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy supported Litvinenko's claim. He said that Litvinenko "was responsible for securing the secrecy of Al-Zawahiri's arrival in Russia, who was trained by FSB instructors in Dagestan,
Al-Zawahiri was convicted of dealing in weapons and received a three-year sentence, which he completed in 1984, shortly after his conviction.
Al-Zawahiri learned of a " Nonviolence Initiative" organized in Egypt to end the terror campaign that had killed hundreds and resulting government crackdown that had imprisoned thousands. Al-Zawahiri angrily opposed this "surrender" in letters to the London newspaper ''
Al-Sharq al-Awsat
''Asharq Al-Awsat'' ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, Aš-Šarq al-ʾAwsaṭ, meaning "The Middle East") is an Arabic international newspaper headquartered in London. A pioneer of the "off-shore" model in the Arabic press, the paper is often noted ...
''. Together with members of
al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya
( ar, الجماعة الإسلامية, "the Islamic Group"; also transliterated El Gama'a El Islamiyya; also called "Islamic Groups" and transliterated Gamaat Islamiya, al Jamaat al Islamiya, is an Egyptian Sunni Islamist movement, and ...
, he helped organize a massive attack on tourists at the
Temple of Hatshepsut
The mortuary temple of Hatshepsut (Egyptian language, Egyptian: ''Ḏsr-ḏsrw'' meaning "Holy of Holies") is a mortuary temple built during the reign of Pharaoh Hatshepsut of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. Located opposite the city of Luxor, ...
to
sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. One who engages in sabotage is a ''saboteur''. Saboteurs typically try to conceal their identitie ...
the initiative by provoking the government into repression.
The attack by six men dressed in police uniforms succeeded in machine-gunning and hacking to death 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians, including "a five-year-old British child and four Japanese couples on their honeymoons," and devastated the Egyptian tourist industry for a number of years. Nonetheless, the Egyptian reaction was not what al-Zawahiri had hoped for. The attack so stunned and angered Egyptian society that Islamists denied responsibility. Al-Zawahiri blamed the police for the killing, but also held the tourists responsible for their own deaths for coming to Egypt,
Al-Zawahiri was
sentenced to death
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
''
in absentia
is Latin for absence. , a legal term, is Latin for "in the absence" or "while absent".
may also refer to:
* Award in absentia
* Declared death in absentia, or simply, death in absentia, legally declared death without a body
* Election in ab ...
'' in 1999 by an Egyptian
military tribunal
Military justice (also military law) is the legal system (bodies of law and procedure) that governs the conduct of the active-duty personnel of the armed forces of a country. In some nation-states, civil law and military law are distinct bod ...
.
Activities and whereabouts after the September 11 attacks
In December 2001, al-Zawahiri published a book entitled ''Fursan Rayat al Nabi'' (''Knights Under the Prophet's Banner'') which outlined ideologies of al-Qaeda. English translations of this book were published; excerpts are available online.
Following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, al-Zawahiri's whereabouts were unknown, but he was generally thought to be in tribal Pakistan. Although he released videos of himself frequently, al-Zawahiri did not appear alongside bin Laden in any of them after 2003. In 2003, it was rumored that he was under arrest in Iran, although this was later discovered to be false.
On January 13, 2006, the
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
, aided by Pakistan's ISI, launched an airstrike on Damadola, a Pakistani village near the Afghan border where they believed al-Zawahiri was located. The airstrike was supposed to kill al-Zawahiri and this was reported in international news over the following days. Many victims of the airstrike were buried unidentified. Anonymous U.S. government officials claimed that some terrorists were killed and the Bajaur tribal area government confirmed that at least four terrorists were among the dead. Anti-American protests broke out around the country and the
Pakistani government
The Government of Pakistan ( ur, , translit=hakúmat-e pákistán) abbreviated as GoP, is a federal government established by the Constitution of Pakistan as a constituted governing authority of the four provinces, two autonomous territories, ...
condemned the U.S. attack and the loss of
innocent
Innocence is a lack of guilt, with respect to any kind of crime, or wrongdoing. In a legal context, innocence is to the lack of legal guilt of an individual, with respect to a crime. In other contexts, it is a lack of experience.
In relation ...
life.
On August 1, 2008, CBS News reported that it had obtained a copy of an intercepted letter dated July 29, 2008, from unnamed sources in Pakistan, which urgently requested a doctor to treat al-Zawahiri. The letter indicated that al-Zawahiri was critically injured in a US missile strike at Azam Warsak village in South Waziristan on July 28 that also reportedly killed al Qaeda explosives expert Abu Khabab al-Masri. Taliban Mehsud spokesman
Maulvi Umar
Maulvi Said Muhammad, better known as Maulvi Omar or Maulvi Umar, is a senior Taliban commander who was captured by the Pakistani security forces in August 2009. Omar, a spokesman for the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), was a close associate of B ...
told the
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...
on August 2, 2008, that the report of al-Zawahiri's injury was false.
In early September 2008, Pakistan Army claimed that they "almost" captured al-Zawahiri after getting information that he and his wife were in the
Mohmand Agency
Mohmand District ( ps, مومندو ولسوالۍ, ur, ) is a district in Peshawar Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan. Until 2018, it was an agency of Federally Administered Tribal Areas, with merger of FATA with Khyber Pakhtun ...
, in northwest Pakistan. After raiding the area, officials didn't find him.
In two videos posted on Jihadist websites in 2012, al-Zawahiri called on Muslims to "capture" foreign citizens to leverage the release of
Omar Abdel-Rahman
Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman ( ar, عمر عبد الرحمن), (ʾUmar ʾAbd ar-Raḥmān; 3 May 1938 – 18 February 2017), commonly known in the United States as "The Blind Sheikh", was a blind Egyptian Islamist militant who served a life sent ...
, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. In the videos, al-Zawahiri cited to the successful kidnapping of Jewish American
Warren Weinstein
Warren Weinstein (July 3, 1941 – January 15, 2015) was an American contractor, and director in Pakistan for J.E. Austin Associates, a firm which increases business competitiveness and growth in developing economies.
He was kidnapped by eight al-Q ...
in 2011 as precedent for further kidnappings. Al-Zawahiri also called for the institution of Sharia law in Egypt and questioned the views of then-President of Egypt
Mohamed Morsi
Mohamed Mohamed Morsi Eissa al-AyyatThe spellings of his first and last names vary. survey of 14 news organizations plus Wikipedia in July 2012 arbitrated against the merger of the
Islamic State of Iraq
The Islamic State of Iraq (ISI; ar, دولة العراق الإسلامية '), commonly referred to as al-Qaeda in Iraq ( ar, القاعدة في العراق '), is a militant Salafist jihadist group that aimed to establish an Islamic stat ...
with the Syrian-based
Jabhat al-Nusra
Al-Nusra Front or Jabhat al-Nusra ( ar, جبهة النصرة لأهل الشام, Jabhat an-Nuṣrah li-Ahl ish-Sham lit. ''Front of the Supporters of the People of Syria/the Levant''), known as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham ( ar, جبهة فتح ال ...
into
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
An Islamic state is a state that has a form of government based on Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic term ...
as was declared in April by
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ( ar, أبو بكر البغدادي, ʾAbū Bakr al-Baḡdādī; born Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Ali Muhammad al-Badri al-Samarrai ( ar, إبراهيم عواد إبراهيم علي محمد البدري السامرائي, ʾIb ...
. Abu Mohammad al-Julani, leader of al-Nusra Front, affirmed the group's allegiance to al-Qaeda and al-Zawahiri.
In September 2015, al-Zawahiri urged Islamic State (ISIL) to stop fighting al-Nusra Front, the official al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, and to unite with all other jihadists against the supposed alliance between America, Russia, Europe,
Shiites
Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, most n ...
regime
In politics, a regime (also "régime") is the form of government or the set of rules, cultural or social norms, etc. that regulate the operation of a government or institution and its interactions with society. According to Yale professor Juan Jo ...
.
Ayman al-Zawahiri released a statement supporting jihad in Xinjiang against Chinese, jihad in the Caucasus against the Russians and naming Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan as battlegrounds. al-Zawahiri endorsed "jihad to liberate every span of land of the Muslims that has been usurped and violated, from Kashgar to
Andalusia
Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a "historical nationality". The t ...
, and from the
Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia (country), Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range ...
to
Somalia
Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constituti ...
and Central Africa".
Uyghurs
The Uyghurs; ; ; ; zh, s=, t=, p=Wéiwú'ěr, IPA: ( ), alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central and East Asia. The Uyghur ...
inhabit Kashgar, the city which was mentioned by al-Zawahiri. In another statement he said, "My mujahideen brothers in all places and of all groups ... we face aggression from America, Europe, and Russia ... so it's up to us to stand together as one from East Turkestan to Morocco". In 2015, the
Turkistan Islamic Party
The Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) or the Turkistan Islamic Movement (TIM), formerly known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and other names, is a Uyghur Islamic extremist organization founded in Western China. Its stated goals ar ...
(East Turkistan Islamic Movement) released an image showing Al Qaeda leaders Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama Bin Laden meeting with Hasan Mahsum.
The Uyghurs
East Turkestan independence movement
The East Turkestan independence movement ( ug, شەرقىي تۈركىستان مۇستەقىللىق ھەرىكىتى; zh, s=东突厥斯坦独立运动) is a political movement that seeks the independence of East Turkestan, a large and spa ...
was endorsed in the serial "Islamic Spring"'s 9th release by Al-Zawahiri. Al-Zawahiri confirmed that the Afghanistan war after 9/11 included the participation of Uyghurs and that the jihadists like Zarwaqi, Bin Ladin and the Uyghur Hasan Mahsum were provided with refuge together in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. Uyghur fighters were praised by al-Zawahiri, before a Turkistan Islamic Party performed a Bishkek bombing on August 30. Uighur jihadists were hailed by Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Doğu Türkistan Bülteni Haber Ajansı reported that the Uyghur
Turkistan Islamic Party
The Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) or the Turkistan Islamic Movement (TIM), formerly known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and other names, is a Uyghur Islamic extremist organization founded in Western China. Its stated goals ar ...
Maqdisi
Maqdisi ( ar, مقدسي) is an Arabic nisba referring to a Jerusalemite. It is derived from ''Bayt al-Maqdis'', an Arabic name for Jerusalem, by way of the Hebrew ''Beit HaMikdash'', the Temple in Jerusalem. Today, the common Arabic name of Jerusa ...
U.S. Department of State
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other ...
offered a reward of up to
US$
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
25 million for information about al-Zawahiri's location.
On July 31, 2022, al-Zawahiri was killed in a US strike in Kabul, Afghanistan. He had been rumoured to be in Pakistan's tribal area or inside Afghanistan. His death is considered to be the biggest hit to the terrorist group since Osama Bin Laden was killed in 2011. Others described his death as "anticlimactic to Al Qaeda's demise", stating " s moves as leader of the shrinking group were watched more by analysts than by jihadists" at the time of his death.
Views
Islamism
As a leader of
Egyptian Islamic Jihad
The Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ, ar, الجهاد الإسلامي المصري), formerly called simply Islamic Jihad ( ar, الجهاد الإسلامي, links=no) and the Liberation Army for Holy Sites, originally referred to as al-Jihad, and ...
, al-Zawahiri conceived of Islamism in Egypt as a revolutionary movement of heroic fighters who the masses would join in the wake of their victories. The movement was mostly a failure, including its crushing defeat and suppression by the Egyptian government following the assassination of Anwar Sadat. The popular uprising envisioned by al-Zawahiri never came to be, and some Islamist leaders agreed to cease-fire terms with the government. After these events, al-Zawahiri joined Al-Qaeda, which had aims that were international in scope and was focused on the conflict with the United States rather than the ongoing localized conflict with the secular regime in Egypt.
Loyalty and enmity
In a lengthy treatise titled "Loyalty and Enmity", al-Zawahiri said that Muslims must at all times be loyal to Islam and to one another, while hating or avoiding everything and everyone outside of Islam.
Female combatants
Al-Zawahiri said in an April 2008 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
''Mujahideen'', or ''Mujahidin'' ( ar, مُجَاهِدِين, mujāhidīn), is the plural form of ''mujahid'' ( ar, مجاهد, mujāhid, strugglers or strivers or justice, right conduct, Godly rule, etc. doers of jihād), an Arabic term t ...
Persians
The Persians are an Iranian ethnic group who comprise over half of the population of Iran. They share a common cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language as well as of the languages that are closely related to Persian.
...
" are the enemy of
Arabs
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
and that Iran cooperated with the U.S. during the
occupation of Iraq Occupation of Iraq or Iraq occupation may refer to:
* Occupation of Iraq (2003–2011) (occupation by American, British and Italian forces)
* Mandatory Iraq
The Kingdom of Iraq under British Administration, or Mandatory Iraq ( ar, الانت ...
.
Promotional activities
Al-Zawahiri placed supreme importance on winning public support, and castigatedAbu Musab al-Zarqawi in this regard: "In the absence of this popular support, the Islamic mujahid movement would be crushed in the shadows."
Video and audio messages
2000s
* August 4, 2005: al-Zawahiri issues a televised statement blaming former British prime minister
Tony Blair
Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...
and his government's foreign policy for the
July 2005 London bombings
The following is a timeline of the 7 July 2005 London bombings and 21 July 2005 London bombings.
All times are in British Summer Time ( BST or UTC+01:00).
First explosions
7 July 2005
* 08:50: Initial reports of an incident between Liverpo ...
.
* September 1, 2005: al-Jazeera broadcasts a video message from Mohammed Sidique Khan, one of bombers of the
London Underground
The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England.
The ...
. His message is followed by another message from al-Zawahiri, blaming again Tony Blair for the 7/7 bombings.
* September 19, 2005: al-Zawahiri claims responsibility for the London bombings and dismisses U.S. efforts in Afghanistan.
* April 3, 2008: al-Zawahiri said that al-Qaeda doesn't kill innocents and that its
ormer
Abalone ( or ; via Spanish , from Rumsen ''aulón'') is a common name for any of a group of small to very large marine gastropod molluscs in the family Haliotidae. Other common names are ear shells, sea ears, and, rarely, muttonfish or mutto ...
leader Osama bin Laden is healthy. The questions asked his views about
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
and
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
, as well as
Hamas
Hamas (, ; , ; an acronym of , "Islamic Resistance Movement") is a Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist, militant, and nationalist organization. It has a social service wing, Dawah, and a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam ...
.
* April 22, 2008: An audio interview in which, among other subjects, al-Zawahiri attacks the Shiite Iran and Hezbollah for blaming the
9/11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerci ...
on Israel, and thus discrediting al-Qaeda.
* On the 7th anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, al-Zawahiri released a 90-minute tape, in which he blasted "the guardian of Muslims in
Tehran
Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...
" for "the two hireling governments" in Iraq and
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
.
* January 7, 2009: An audio message released, where al-Zawahiri vows revenge for Israel's air and ground assault on Gaza and calls the Jewish state's actions against Hamas militants "a gift" from U.S. President-elect
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
for the recent uprising conflict in Gaza.
* October 4, 2009: ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' reported that al-Zawahiri had asserted that
Libya
Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Suda ...
had tortured
Ibn Al Sheikh Al Libi
Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi (; ALFB transliteration: ''Ḁbnʋ ălŞɑỉƈ alLibi''; born Ali Mohamed Abdul Aziz al-Fakheri; 1963 – May 10, 2009) was a Libyan national captured in Afghanistan in November 2001 after the fall of the Taliban; he was i ...
to death. Al Libi was a key source the
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
Presidency had claimed established that Iraq had provided training to al-Qaeda in Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction
A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to numerous individuals or cause great damage to artificial structures (e.g., buildings), natu ...
.
* December 14, 2009: In an audio recording released on December 14, 2009, al-Zawahiri renewed calls to establish an Islamic state in Israel and urged his followers to "seek jihad against Jews" and their supporters. He also called for jihad against America and the West, and labeled Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, King Abdullah II of Jordan, and King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia as the "brothers of Satan".
2010s
* June 8, 2011: al-Zawahiri released his first video since the
killing of Osama bin Laden
On May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden, the founder and first leader of the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda, was shot several times and killed at his compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, by United States Navy SEALs of the U.S. Naval S ...
, praising bin Laden and warning the U.S. of reprisal attacks, but without staking a claim on the leadership of al-Qaeda.
* September 3, 2014: In a 55-minute-long video, al-Zawahiri announced the formation of a new wing called
al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent
Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military targets in various countri ...
(AQIS), which would wage jihad "to liberate its land, to restore its sovereignty, and to revive its Caliphate." Reaction amongst Muslims in India to the formation of the new wing was one of fury.
* March 2018: al-Zawahiri posts a video entitled "America is the First Enemy of the Muslims", where he defends the Muslim Brotherhood and claims that the US is "working with Saudi Arabia to train imams and rewrite religious textbooks". This is his sixth video in 2018. He refers to
Rex Tillerson
Rex Wayne Tillerson (born March 23, 1952) is an American engineer and energy executive who served as the 69th U.S. secretary of state from February 1, 2017, to March 31, 2018, under President Donald Trump. Prior to joining the Trump administ ...
's firing as
US Secretary of State
The United States secretary of state is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The office holder is one of the highest ranking members of the president's Ca ...
in the
Trump administration
Donald Trump's tenure as the 45th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican from New York City, took office following his Electoral College victory ...
.
* September 11, 2019: al-Zawahiri posts a 9/11 18th anniversary propaganda video entitled "And They Shall Continue to Fight You" through al-Qaeda media outlet As Sahab. Al-Zawahiri condemns Islamic scholars who condemned al-Qaeda for the 9/11 attacks and continues to call for jihad regarding Israel and Palestine. Clips of
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
and
Benjamin Netanyahu
Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu (; ; born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician who served as the ninth prime minister of Israel from 1996 to 1999 and again from 2009 to 2021. He is currently serving as Leader of the Opposition and Chairman of ...
were inter-spaced in the video.
2020s
* In September 2021, on the 20th anniversary of the
9/11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerci ...
, after a month of
Taliban
The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pasht ...
takeover in
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
, a video of al-Zawahiri surfaced, but he did not mention the
Taliban
The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pasht ...
In mid-December 2007, al-Zawahiri's spokespeople announced plans for an "open interview" on a handful of Islamic Web sites. The administrators of four known
jihadist
Jihadism is a neologism which is used in reference to "militant Islamic movements that are perceived as existentially threatening to the West" and "rooted in political Islam."Compare: Appearing earlier in the Pakistani and Indian media, Wes ...
web sites
A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wikip ...
have been authorized to collect and forward questions, "unedited", they pledge, and "regardless of whether they are in support of or are against" al-Qaeda, which would be forwarded to al-Zawahiri on January 16. al-Zawahiri responded to the questions later in 2008; among the things he said were that al-Qaeda didn't kill
innocent
Innocence is a lack of guilt, with respect to any kind of crime, or wrongdoing. In a legal context, innocence is to the lack of legal guilt of an individual, with respect to a crime. In other contexts, it is a lack of experience.
In relation ...
s, and that al-Qaeda would move to target Israel "after expelling the occupier from
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
Al-Zawahiri was killed on July 31, 2022, shortly after 6:00 AM
local time
Local time is the time observed in a specific locality. There is no canonical definition. Originally it was mean solar time, but since the introduction of time zones it is generally the time as determined by the time zone in effect, with daylight s ...
in an early-morning drone strike conducted by the U.S.
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
in the upscale Sherpur neighborhood of
Kabul
Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acco ...
, reportedly in a house owned by a top aide to
Sirajuddin Haqqani
Sirajuddin Haqqani ( ps, سراج الدين حقاني, Sirāj al-Dīn Ḥaqqānī, ; aliases ''Khalifa'', and, ''Siraj Haqqani''. born December 1979) is an Afghan Islamist militant who is the first deputy leader of Afghanistan and the acti ...
, a senior official in the
Taliban
The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pasht ...
government.
In a statement to reporters, a senior administration official said "over the weekend, the United States conducted a counterterrorism operation against a significant Al Qaeda target in Afghanistan. The operation was successful and there were no civilian casualties." The
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national sec ...
denied responsibility for the strike, while the
United States Central Command
The United States Central Command (USCENTCOM or CENTCOM) is one of the eleven unified combatant commands of the U.S. Department of Defense. It was established in 1983, taking over the previous responsibilities of the Rapid Deployment Joint Ta ...
declined to comment. On August 1, delayed by two days to allow time for proper verification of the operation's success, President Joe Biden announced at the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...
that the U.S. Intelligence Community had located al-Zawahiri as he moved into downtown Kabul in early 2022 and that President Biden had authorized the operation a week prior. Biden also stated that the operation did not harm any members of al-Zawahiri's family or other civilians.
According to U.S. government sources, Al-Zawahiri was killed by Hellfire missiles fired from a
Reaper drone
The General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper (sometimes called Predator B) is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) capable of remotely controlled or autonomous flight operations developed by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) primarily for the Unit ...
. Press sources have speculated that the missiles may have been R9X Hellfire missiles, which are designed to kill by impact and with blades instead of explosion to avoid unintended casualties.
See also
*
FBI Most Wanted Terrorists
The FBI Most Wanted Terrorists is a list created and first released on October 10, 2001, with the authority of United States President George W. Bush, following the September 11 attacks on the United States. Initially, the list contained 22 of ...
Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif
Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif, ( ar, سيد إمام الشريف, ''Sayyid ‘Imām ash-Sharīf''; born 8 August 1950), aka "Dr. Fadl" and Abd Al-Qader Bin 'Abd Al-'Aziz, El-Zayyat, Montasser, "The Road to al-Qaeda", 2004. tr. by Ahmed Fakry has been des ...
*
Videos and audio recordings of Osama bin Laden
There were several video and audio recordings released by Osama bin Laden between 2001 and 2011.
Most of the tapes were released directly (by mail or messenger) to Arabic language satellite television networks, primarily al Jazeera.
Audio or v ...
Notes and references
Explanatory notes
Citations
Works cited
*
*
General references
* al-Zawahiri, Ayman, ''L'absolution'', Milelli, Villepreux, (French translation of Al-Zawahiri's latest book).
* Ibrahim, Raymond (2007), ''The Al Qaeda Reader'', Broadway Books, .
* Kepel, Gilles; & Jean-Pierre Milelli (2010), ''Al Qaeda in Its Own Words'', Harvard University Press, Cambridge & London, .
* Mansfield, Laura (2006), ''His Own Words: A Translation of the Writings of Dr. Ayman Al Zawahiri'', Lulu Pub.
External links
*
*
Counter Extremism Project
The Counter Extremism Project (CEP) is a non-profit non-governmental organization that combats extremist groups "by pressuring financial support networks, countering the narrative of extremists and their online recruitment, and advocating for st ...
MEMRI
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI; officially the "Middle East Media and Research Institute") is a nonprofit press monitoring and analysis organization co-founded by former Israeli military intelligence officer Yigal Carmon an ...
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...