The United States killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone strike, President Joe Biden said on Monday 1 August in a speech from the White House.
Zawahiri, who just turned 71 years old, had remained a visible international symbol of the group, 11 years after the US killed Osama bin Laden. At one point, he acted as bin Laden’s personal physician.
American people against those who seek to do us harm,” Biden said from the Blue Room Balcony of the White House.
Here’s what you need to know about Zawahiri and the US’ strike against him.
How did Zawahiri rise to power?
Born in 1951, Zawahiri grew up in an upper-class neighborhood in Cairo, Egypt, the son of a prominent physician and grandson of renowned scholars.
His grandfather, Rabia’a al-Zawahiri, was an imam at al-Azhar University in Cairo. His great-uncle, Abdel Rahman Azzam, was the first secretary of the Arab League.
Zawahiri was imprisoned for his involvement in the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
“We want to speak to the whole world. Who are we? Who are we?” he said in a jailhouse interview.
By that time, Zawahiri, a young doctor, was already a committed terrorist who conspired to overthrow the Egyptian government for years and sought to replace it with fundamentalist Islamic rule. He proudly endorsed Sadat’s assassination after the Egyptian leader made peace with Israel.
