According to sources, Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri Killed in US drone attackZawahiri remained the group’s visible international icon, 11 years after the United States murdered Osama bin Laden.
one time he Bin Laden’s personal physician.
According to The New York Times, Zawahiri comes from a prestigious Egyptian family. He ultimately helped mastermind the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil when hijackers turned a U.S. airliner into a missile.
“Nineteen brothers who went out and gave their souls to Allah Almighty, Almighty God has granted them this victory and we are now enjoying it,” Al-Zawahiri said in 2002 4 He said in a video message released in May.
This is what the terrorist, who became the leader of al-Qaeda after the US military killed bin Laden in 2011, has been calling for years, urging extremists to continue fighting the United States, and It was the first of many provocative messages to rebuke leaders.
Zawahiri was on the move as the US-led invasion of Afghanistan began after the September 11, 2001 attacks. At one point, he narrowly escaped a US onslaught in Afghanistan’s rugged mountainous Tora Bora region, leaving his wife and children dead.
He made his public debut as an Islamic extremist while in prison for his involvement in the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
After Sadat’s assassination, he spent three years in prison and claimed to have been tortured in custody. After his release, he traveled to Pakistan to treat wounded Mujahaddin fighters who fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
That’s when he met bin Laden and found a common cause.
“We are working with the bin Laden brothers,” he said in May 1998 when he announced the merger of his terrorist group Egypt Islamic Jihad with al-Qaeda. I know from. We fought him here in Afghanistan.”
The two terrorist leaders signed a fatwa, or declaration, together.
Attacks on the United States and its facilities began weeks later, with suicide bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killing more than 200 people and injuring more than 5,000. Zawahiri and bin Laden moaned after evading a US cruise missile attack in Afghanistan that was launched in retaliation.
Then, in October 2000, there was an attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, where a suicide bomber in a dinghy detonated a boat, killing 17 American sailors and injuring 39 others.
The culmination of Zawahiri’s terrorist plot came on September 11, 2001, when nearly 3,000 people were killed in attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon’s Twin Towers. His fourth hijacked airliner, bound for Washington, crashed in a Pennsylvania field after passengers fought back.
Since then, Zawahiri has increased his profile, appearing in numerous video and audiotapes urging Muslims to join him in jihad against the United States and its allies. was tracked by For example, in May 2003, days after the release of a tape believed to contain Zawahiri’s voice, a near-simultaneous suicide bombing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killed 23 of his people, including nine Americans. Did.
U.S. Department of State Offered rewards of up to $25 million For information directly leading to his capture. June 2021 UN report He lived somewhere in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, suggesting that he might have been too weak to be featured in propaganda.
Read more about Zawahiri here.
Source: www.cnn.com
