He was one of hundreds arrested following the assassination of Anwar Sadat, but 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 journeyed to Afghanistan to participate in the mujahideen resistance against the Soviet Union's occupation. There he met Osama bin Laden, who was running a base for mujahideen called Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK); both of them worked under the tutelage of the Palestinian Abdullah Yusuf Azzam; later when the MAK fractured al-Zawahiri joined bin Laden in organizing the al-Qaeda group.

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.

In 1996, he was considered the most credible threat and a highly lethal terrorist who could strike against the USA. A warning issued at the time specified suicide bombing as the likely form of attack. In late 1996 he was detained in Russia for six months by the FSB after he apparently tried to recruit jihadists in Chechnya. According to the FSB spokesman Sergei Ignatchenko, "He had four passports, in four different names and nationalities. We checked him out in every country, but they could not confirm him. We could not keep him forever, so we took him to the Azerbaijani border and let him go." In 1997 he was held responsible for the massacre of 62 foreign tourists in the Egyptian town of Luxor (November 1997 Luxor massacre, for which he was sentenced to death in absentia in 1999 by an Egyptian military tribunal.

On February 23, 1998, he issued a joint fatwa with Osama bin Laden under the title "World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders", an important step in broadening their conflicts to a global scale.

On September 25, 2001, Interpol issued an arrest warrant for Dr. al-Zawahiri in response to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon.

On October 10, 2001 Dr. al-Zawahiri appeared on the initial list of the FBI's top 22 Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by President Bush.

In December 2001, he published the book "Knights Under the Prophet's Banner" outlining al-Qaeda ideology. English translations of this book were published, but are currently difficult to locate due to security reasons. However, extracts are available online. He is also currently working on another book.

Following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, al-Zawahiri's whereabouts are unclear. It seems likely he stays with bin Laden in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan. On December 3, 2001, airstrikes were launched on a complex of caves near Jalalabad. Zawahiri's wife, Azza, and their three children were reportedly killed in the attack.

In May of 2004, the Pakistani government had announced that he was surrounded in a tribal area of Pakistan bordering the Afghan mountains, along with 50-100 hardcore Al Qaeda fighters. Although there were significant casualties, no trace of him was discovered. It is now believed he was never in the area to begin with or slipped out of the dragnet just as the fighting commenced.

On January 13, 2006, the CIA launched an airstrike on Damadola, a Pakistani village near the Afghan border, where they believed al-Zawahiri was located. The airstrike killed eight men, five women and five children but Al-Zawahiri was not killed. Many victims were buried without being identified. Anonymous U.S. government officials claimed that some foreign fighters were killed and the Bajaur tribal area government confirmed that at least four foreign fighters were among the dead. Anti-American protests broke out around the country and Pakistan's government condemned the U.S. attack and the loss of innocent life.

On January 30th, 2006 a new video was released showing al-Zawahiri unhurt. The video did discuss the airstrike, but did not reveal if Al-Zawahiri was present in the village at that time.

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The End. June 27, 2006