Terrorist Organization Member Profile:
Ayman al-Zawahiri

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Ayman al-Zawahiri was born in Egypt in 1953. After the 1967 war with Israel, al-Zawahiri became radicalized and at the age of fourteen he joined the Muslim Brotherhood. Two years later he moved on to join Islamic Jihad. Due to domestic pressures, he moved to Afghanistan in the mid-1990s where he met with the fledgling al-Qaeda organization and helped to develop its structure.

Al-Zawahiri is also the founder of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which seeks to overthrow the secular Egyptian Government through violent means. A physician, Al Zawahiri is thought to be serving as both an advisor and doctor to Usama Bin Laden in Afghanistan.

He has been indicted for conspiracy to kill United States nationals, to murder, to destroy buildings and property of the United States, and to destroy National Defense utilities of the United States, largely in connection with the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. In 1999 he was sentenced to death in absentia in Egypt. The U.S. State Department has a $25 million reward for information leading to his arrest.