10:08pm UK, Thursday March 18, 2004

As mentor to Osama bin Laden and the brains behind al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri is considered to be one of the world's most dangerous terrorists.

An eye surgeon who speaks several languages, al-Zawahri took the path of political extremism while in his teens.

Ayman al-Zawahri

He later guided the rich Saudi, bin Laden, along the same path, leading to the creation of the world's most feared terrorist organisation.

Many believe al-Zawahri was the "operational brains" behind the September 11 terrorist attacks on the US in 2001.

Now in his early 50s, he is also thought to have been behind the 1995 suicide bombings at the Egyptian embassy in Pakistan, where 15 died and 60 more were injured.

And the 1998 truck bombings at the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people and injuring thousands more, were also his work.

Al-Zawahri is considered bin Laden's right-hand man, but many experts believe he is the terror leader's role model and inspiration.

"Ayman is for bin Laden like the brain to the body," said Cairo lawyer Montasser al Zayat, who has represented many Islamic militants.

Born in Egypt in 1951, Ayman al-Zawahri, comes from a middle-class family of doctors and academics.

His father was a pharmacology professor and his grandfather was the grand imam of Cairo's Al Azhar university.

Al-Zawahri graduated from Cairo University's medical school in 1974 and achieved a masters degree in surgery four years later.

But his radical thinking began to blossom when he was just a teenager.


At 15 he was arrested for being a member of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, the Arab world's oldest fundamentalist group.

He was later tried among a group of radical Islamists for their role in the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat and served a three year sentence before leaving for Saudi Arabia.

Al-Zawahri met bin Laden during the Afghan war, in 1985, and - at several years older - made a strong impact on bin Laden's life.

The combination of bin Laden's money and al Zawahri's ideology led to the creation of al Qaeda as it is today.

Lawyer Mr al Zayat told Time magazine: "When Osama went to Afghanistan, he was just a young man supporting the Afghans.

"He did not have a political outlook. Ayman controlled Osama completely. He convinced him of the principles of jihad."

As well as bringing the ideology to al Qaeda, al-Zawahri has also controlled finances and operations for the network.

"Ayman is much more politically skilled than bin Laden," Mary Anne Weaver, author of A Portrait of Egypt: A Journey Through the World of Militant Islam told Time.

"He's better educated. He has a larger world view."

He is well educated and well travelled, believed to have lived in Denmark and Switzerland in the early 1990s.

If al-Zawahri is killed or captured it will mark a bitter blow for al Qaeda and the network's leader.

But even if the man is removed from the scene of global terrorism, there are many more willing to follow his extremist path.