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.
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