THE NEW GERONIMO?

ZAWAHIRI: THE EGYPTIAN TERROR BOSS SET TO REPLACE BIN LADEN

Ayman Al Zawahiri met Osama Bin Laden in the mid-1980s while supporting mujahideen guerrillas fighting Soviets in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar.

The Egyptian was born in Cairo in 1951 to a prominent family, his father a professor of pharmacology and his grandfather the grand imam of the highly influential Al Azhar mosque.

Zawahiri is said to be the brains behind the Al Qaeda network with analysts describing him as Al Qaeda's chief organiser and Bin Laden's closest mentor.

He has at times appeared the terrorist groups's most public face, often appearing in videos denouncing the West. 

The terror chief is notorious in Egypt after being sentenced to death in absentia by an Egyptian military court in 1999. He has also been indicted in connection with the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. 

Zawahri has repeatedly called for al Qaeda to seize control of a state, an elusive goal for the group. 

Zawahiri wrote in his 2001 essay Knights Under The Prophet's Banner: 'If we do not achieve this goal, our actions will be nothing more than small scale harassment.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1384358/Osama-Bin-Laden-dead-Al-Qaeda-power-struggle-led-Zawahiri-turn-leader.html#ixzz1LgTkunT8