Who was Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda leader and Osama bin Laden successor

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.

Zawahiri, 71, was killed in a CIA drone strike in Kabul over the weekend, according to officials familiar with the m…