
Americans knew him as al-Qaeda’s No 2 leader, the bespectacled, bushy-bearded deputy to Osama Bin Laden. But in reality, it was Ayman al-Zawahiri’s brains and blood-drenched hands that guided the world’s most notorious terrorist movement.
Al-Zawahiri, 71, was killed in a CIA drone strike in Kabul over the weekend, according to officials familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence.