Know more about Ayman al-Zawahiri, world's most wanted terrorist

New Delhi: Ayman al-Zawahiri assumed the leadership of al-Qaeda in June 2011, six weeks after U.S. forces killed top leader Osama bin Laden in his hideout in Pakistan. Until then, the Egyptian doctor was regarded as second-in-command of the terrorist network. He served as the chief ideologue of the group and was suspected to be the "operational brains" behind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in. Following bin Laden's killing, he became the most wanted terrorist on the FBI's list, and the U.S. State Department offers a $25 million reward for information leading to his capture. Ayman al-Zawahiri was born in 1951 in Maadi, Cairo, to Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri and Umayma Azzam. The al-Zawahiri family was considered "upper middle class" while they lived in Maadi. Ayman had a younger brother, Muhammad al-Zawahiri, and a sister, Heba Mohamed al-Zawahiri. Ayman's father, Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri, came from a large family of doctors and scholars. Ayman's mother, Umayma Azzam, came from a wealthy, politically active clan. Ayman expressed that he has a deep affection for his mother. Her brother, Mahfouz Azzam, became a role model for Ayman as a teenager. Zawahiri worked in the medical field as a Surgeon. In 1985, Zawahiri went to Saudi Arabia on Hajj and stayed to practice medicine in Jeddah for a year. As a reportedly qualified surgeon; when his organization merged with bin Laden's al-Qaeda, he became bin Laden's personal advisor and physician. Upon meeting bin Laden, he at once understood the wealthy Saudi's potential usefulness to his personal ambitions. In 1980, experts say, bin Laden was politically motivated but ideologically malleable. And he was very wealthy. In 1981, Zawahiri was arrested and imprisoned, along with dozens of other radicals, for collaborating in the assassination of Egypt's President Anwar Sadat. Prison time only redoubled Zawahiri's fervor. Not long after his release, he took over leadership of the terrorist organization Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which the United States believes helped to organize the August 7, 1998, bombings of U.S. Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. In 2001, according to widely accepted accounts, Zawahiri formally merged the Egyptian Islamic Jihad with bin Laden's al-Qaeda network. The group is now officially named Qaeda al-Jihad. In July 2007, Al-Zawahiri gave direction for the Lal Masjid siege, codename Operation Silence. This was the first time to confirm that that Al-Zawahiri was taking militant steps against the Pakistan Government, and guiding Islamic militants against the State of Pakistan. The Pakistan Army troops and Special Service Group taking control of the Red Mosque in Islamabad found letters from al-Zawahiri directing Islamic militants Abdul Rashid Ghazi and Abdul Aziz Ghazi, who ran the mosque and adjacent madrasah. This conflict resulted in 100 deaths. On December 27, 2007, al-Zawahiri was also implicated in the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. As of May 2, 2011, he became the leader of al-Qaeda following the death of Osama bin Laden. This was confirmed by a press release from al-Qaeda's general command on June 16. al-Zawahiri's succession to command of al-Qaeda was announced on several of their websites on June 16, 2011. On the same day, al-Qaeda renewed its position that Israel was an illegitimate state and that it wouldn't accept any compromise on Palestine. Zawahiri is believed to be hiding in Pakistan's tribal areas, along the border with Afghanistan. He reportedly survived a U.S. missile strike in January 2006 in Pakistan's tribal areas that killed more than a dozen people. After bin Laden was found in a garrison town only sixty-seven miles from Islamabad, many Western analysts question whether Zawahiri too, is hiding in a Pakistani city outside the lawless borderlands.