扎瓦赫里被广泛视为本.拉登继任者

A surgeon by profession, al-Zawahri, like bin Laden, gave up a life of privilege to violently promote a puritanical Islamic ideal. They met in the fight against Soviet troops in Afghanistan, but his roots in radical ideology stretch back to his teen years.

身为外科医生的扎瓦赫里像本·拉登一样，放弃了养尊处优的生活，而投身于暴力推行一个极端的伊斯兰理想。扎瓦赫里和本·拉登在对抗驻阿富汗苏联军队的战斗中相遇，但是，扎瓦赫里激进的意识形态可以追溯到他的少年时代。

A fellow Islamist who shared an Egyptian prison cell with al-Zawahiri in the early 1980's, remembers him as a modest, poetry-reciting "gentleman," a surprisingly common description of terror leaders.

同为伊斯兰主义者的阿萨姆·阿卜杜尔·马吉德曾在上个世纪80年代与扎瓦赫里被关押在埃及的同一个监狱里。他记忆中的扎瓦赫里是一位谦逊、喜爱吟诗的“绅士”，这是令人惊讶的对恐怖主义领导人最常见的描述。

Assem Abdel Maged says outward demeanor could be misleading. Abdel Maged adds that in spite of his politeness and docility, al-Zawahiri is rigid, someone who one cannot oppose or face to change his views.

阿萨姆说，外在的行为可能使人误解。阿萨姆说，尽管扎瓦赫里有礼而温和，但是他性格固执，别人不能反对他，也不能强迫他改变观点。

Sheikh Abdel Maged, a senior member of Jemaah Islamiyah, says the Islamic Group has advised al-Zawahri to follow its example and abandon violence. But the sheikh argues that as long as the reasons that provoked al Qaida remain - what he sees as American arrogance and support of Israel - so too will the group. All the same, in recent years, al-Qaida has been forced to undergo change. Part can be attributed to its leaders being forced underground.

谢赫·阿卜杜尔·马吉德是“伊斯兰祈祷团”的一名高级成员。他说，这个伊斯兰组织曾劝告扎瓦赫里，像他们一样放弃暴力。但是谢赫也争辩说，只要那些向基地组织挑衅的理由仍然存在，那么对“伊斯兰祈祷团”来说也是一样的。他认为，这些理由包括美国的傲慢自大及其对以色列的支持。近几年以来，基地组织也一样被迫经历了转变，部分原因可能是它的领导人一直被迫进行地下工作。