Al Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri Siblings: Meet Muhammad al-Zawahiri, Hussein al-Zawahiri, And Heba Mohamed al-Zawahiri

Muhammad al-Zawahiri, Hussein al-Zawahiri, and Heba Mohamed al-Zawahiri are the siblings of Ayman Mohammed al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian-born physician and theologian who was the leader of terrorist group al-Qaeda from June 2011 until his death on July 31, 2022.

• Heba Mohamed al-Zawahiri

Heba was Zawahiri’s twin sister.

She became a professor of medical oncology at the National Cancer Institute, Cairo University and famously described her brother as “silent and shy”.

• Muhammad Rabee al-Zawahiri

Muhammad is an Egyptian Islamist who was a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and one of 14 people subjected to extraordinary rendition by the CIA prior to the 2001 War on Terror.

He is Ayman Mohammed al-Zawahiri’s younger brother.

Muhammad graduated from the engineering college at Cairo University in 1974.

Seven years after graduating, thus, in 1981, his name was among those indicted in absentia for the assassination of Anwar Sadat after his brother implicated him in recruiting the Egyptians Mustafa Kamel Mustafa and Abdel Hadi al-Tunsi while living in Saudi Arabia.

However, he was found not guilty of the charge. He joined the World Islamic Relief Organization, and traveled to Indonesia, Bosnia and Malawi where he helped build schools and medical clinics.

Muhamad is a contractor and his work saw him frequently travel to the United Arab Emirates for business.

Following his in absentia conviction in the Returnees from Albania trial, he was arrested in March or April 1999 in the United Arab Emirates and renditioned to Cairo, where he was accused of conspiring with Khaled Abdul Samee.

Muhamad was released from prison in Edypt in March 2011, but was quickly re-arrested.

He was subsequently re-tried in an Egyptian military court on terrorism charges and acquitted of all charges, and was released in March 2012.

In September 2012, he offered to mediate a 10-year hudna between Islamists and the Western world, under the condition that the United States and the West would stop;

1. Intervening in Muslim lands,
2. Stop interfering in Muslim education,
3. End the so-called ‘war on Islam’ and
4. Release all Islamist prisoners.

In August 2013, in the wake of the overthrow of President Morsi, Muhamad was arrested and in April 2014, together with 67 others, he was charged with forming a terrorist group and seeking to undermine security across Egypt.

However, on 17 March 2016, Muhamad was released from prison.

Muhamad is married with six kids.

• Hussein Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri

Hussein al-Zawahiri, the last born, was one of 14 people subjected to extraordinary rendition by the CIA prior to the 2001 declaration of a War on Terror.

He was captured in Malaysia, and renditioned to Egypt.

As a result of having no known connection to terrorism, other than that he was the younger brother of militant leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, he was released in 2000.