Radical Egyptian eye surgeon the brains behind al-Qaida

AN eye surgeon from a wealthy Egyptian family, Ayman al Zawahri is believed to be the brains behind the murderous al-Qaida network.

The 54-year-old is Osama bin Laden’s mentor and has managed to evade numerous attempts at capture.

As a 15-year-old he was arrested for membership of Egypt’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, the Arab world’s oldest fundamentalist group.

It was the combination of his radical ideology with the wealth of bin Laden that created al-Qaida as it is today.

Many believe al Zawahri was the mastermind behind the attacks on New York on September 11 2001.

He is also thought to have been behind the 1995 suicide bombing at the Egyptian embassy in Pakistan where 15 died as well as the 1998 truck bombings at US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania which killed more than 200.

So far he has evaded the manhunt for the al Qaida leadership although his wife and children were believed to have been killed in a US air strike in Afghanistan.

He has released a number of combative video messages, in which he called for armed jihad to bring reform and the removal of “Crusader” forces from the Middle East.