Ayman al Zauahiri was what is known in the world of Anglo-Saxon entertainment as a has-been, someone who was great in the past and in the end was little. The comparison may seem hateful in the case of one of the world's greatest terrorists, but it fits because Al Zawahiri, who always appeared as a secondary actor alongside Osama bin Laden, could have been the star of the world jihad when he was assassinated by Barack Obama , and yet he was overtaken by an upstart, Abu Bakr el Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State. His organization, Al Qaeda, was relegated to the background and there are still doubts today as to whether he is in better health than its leader in recent times, since in November 2020 it was said that Al Zawahiri had died of illness.
A member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the young Ayman al Zawahiri is arrested after the assassination of President Anwar el Sadat in 1981 and spends three years in prison. He moves to Saudi Arabia, to Pakistan – stage in which he meets Osama bin Laden, then on Washington's payroll in the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan – and to Sudan, which will also be a refuge for the Saudi. Both forced to move to Afghanistan, by then Al Zawahiri's men in Egypt have left rivers of blood, from the failed attack on Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa in 1995 to the massacre of 58 Swiss tourists in Luxor in 1997.
On February 23, 1998, Bin Laden announced the creation of the International Islamic Front against the Crusaders and Zionists. Bin Laden is a charismatic guy; Al Zawahiri is his gray lieutenant: however, it is believed that he is actually the brains of the organization that will become known as Al Qaeda, “the base” (originally a recruiting office). This initiative means that there is a shift from fighting corrupt Muslim regimes to doing so against their sponsor, the United States, the “distant enemy”. The 9/11 attacks will be the highest expression of the Al Zawahiri doctrine.
In the winter of 2001, a lack of coordination between the Pentagon and the CIA prevents the killing of Bin Laden and Al Zawahiri in the mountains of Tora Bora (Afghanistan). Just five years later, when the US develops a campaign of drone attacks in Afghanistan, Iraq or Pakistan, Al Zawahiri is located in a village in the Pakistani tribal area: the rocket narrowly misses, although it kills five members of Al Qaeda and various civilians. They are the two best-known cases of attempts to take down terrorist leaders.
Al Zauahiri begins to lose his ascendancy during the fight in Iraq against the American invader. He reproaches the local Al Qaeda leader, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, for waging war on the Shiites, but the latter ignores him. Al Zawahiri does not know or cannot bridge this great fracture between Sunnis and Shiites within the jihad.
The decline of Al Qaeda became fully apparent in 2012, after the assassination of Bin Laden. The newly created Islamic State in Iraq and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, refuse to swear allegiance to his successor and will accuse Al Zahuahiri of wanting to maintain the division – colonial heritage – between Syria and Iraq. The Islamic State (IS) will emerge as the standard-bearer of global jihad that promises the caliphate here and now, something that Al Qaeda does not even consider. In addition, if the leader of Al Qaeda hardly sends messages abroad, the IS efficiently practices all modern communication strategies.
Al Qaeda's return to Afghanistan was public and notorious from the moment the Taliban returned to power, just a year ago. Al Zauahiri acted as their adviser, according to a recent UN report. One of his three possible successors is believed to be his Moroccan son-in-law, Abdel Rahman el Magrebi, administrator of Al Qaeda's headquarters in Afghanistan and Pakistan and director of the organization's media and propaganda network, known as " Cloud".
