Ayman al Zawahiri

Ayman al Zawahiri is a Salafi-jihadist terrorist and the current head of Al Qaeda. Born in Egypt in 1951, Zawahiri originally trained as a physician before becoming involved in the Muslim Brotherhood. After the Egyptian government executed Sayyid Qutb, a prominent Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, for conspiracy, Zawahiri founded the terrorist group Egyptian Islamic Jihad. He eventually merged this group with Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda, and Zawahiri went on to serve as a top advisor to bin Laden. After bin Laden was killed in 2011, Zawahiri took over leadership of Al Qaeda. Under his leadership, Al Qaeda has shifted to a model of regional affiliates supporting locally focused insurgencies, with less focus on launching large-scale, international attacks. Nevertheless, Al Qaeda's brand has proven to be durable under pressure from international counterterrorism efforts, though it is unclear to what degree Zawahiri is in direct contact with or leverages authority over Al Qaeda's regional franchises.