Al-Zawahiri is a physician and the founder of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ). This organization opposes the secular Egyptian Government and seeks its overthrow through violent means. In approximately 1998, the EIJ led by Al-Zawahiri merged with Al Qaeda.  A lifelong jihadist with a chip on his shoulder, Zawahiri is the No. 2 most wanted terrorist in the world, after only bin Laden himself. He's widely characterized as the No. 2 man in al Qaeda.  Zawahiri has spent a lifetime waging jihad around the globe. His specialties include assassination and suicide bombing, and he's gathered a virtual army of mujahideen fighters around himself,  Zawahiri is the primary intellectual force behind al Qaeda. He has reportedly played critical roles in consolidating al Qaeda's alliances with other terror groups and he is believed to be deeply involved in operational planning for terrorist attacks.  Most terrorism experts consider Zawahiri more dangerous than bin Laden, both intellectually and ideologically. His influence is far-reaching; gaining footholds even among potential U.S. allies in the Middle East, such as the Kurds.  In 2005, Osama bin Laden went silent, and his deputy Zawahiri emerged as the voice of al Qaeda in a series of video and audio messages directed at the ongoing struggle against the West.

The Original Islamic Terrorist

By the age of fourteen Zawahiri had joined an Islamic group called the Muslim Brotherhood  and had become a student and follower of Sayyid Qutb.  By 1979 Zawahiri had finished his education and he then moved on to the much more radical Islamic Jihad, where he eventually became one of its leading organizers and recruiters. He was one of hundreds arrested following the assassination of Anwar Sadat  However, the Egyptian government was unable to prove any connection between al-Zawahiri and the assassination and he was released after serving jail time for illegal arms possession.  In the 1980s he heeded the call to Afghanistan to participate in the mujahideen resistance against the Soviet Union's  occupation.   this is the believed beginning of the bin Laden-Zawahiri  relationship.  Osama bin Laden, was running a base for mujahideen called Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK); both of them worked under the tutelage of the Palestinian Abdullah Yusuf Azzam.  In 1990 al-Zawahiri returned to Egypt, where he continued to push Islamic Jihad in more radical directions employing knowledge and tactics learned in Afghanistan.