Ayman al-Zawahiri

Ayman al-Zawahiri (1951 to 2022) was an Egyptian physician and militant, born in Giza, who took a degree in medicine and a master's degree in surgery at Cairo University and was a surgeon by profession. He is recorded here for that medical training and not for his later career. He became a leading figure in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and was imprisoned from 1981 to 1984 for his role in the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. He merged that organization with al-Qaeda in 2001, became Osama bin Laden's deputy in 2004 and led al-Qaeda from 2011 until he was killed in a CIA drone strike in Afghanistan on 31 July 2022.