Coordinates	°′″N°′″N
Name	Ayman al-Zawahiri
Birth date	June 19, 1951
Birth place	Maadi, Cairo, Egypt
Occupation	Islamic theologian,al-Qaeda leader, International Terrorist
Predecessor	Osama bin Laden
Religion	Sunni Islam (Qutbism)
Spouse	Azza Ahmed(m. 1978–2001, her death)
Parents	Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri (father)Umayma Azzam (mother)

Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri (, detailed transliteration:  ; born June 19, 1951) is an Egyptian Islamic theologian and current leader of al-Qaeda. He was previously the second and last "emir" of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, having succeeded Abbud al-Zumar in the latter role when Egyptian authorities sentenced al-Zumar to life imprisonment. His wife and three of his six children were killed in an air strike on Afghanistan by US forces in late 2001, following the September 11 attacks on the USA. This was confirmed by a press release from al-Qaeda's general command on June 16.

al-Zawahiri is reportedly a qualified surgeon; when his organization merged with bin Laden's al-Qaeda, he became bin Laden's personal advisor and physician. He had first met bin Laden in Jeddah in 1986. al-Zawahiri has shown a radical understanding of Islamic theology and Islamic history. He speaks Arabic, English and French. He is under worldwide sanctions by the United Nations Security Council 1267 Committee as a member or affiliate of al-Qaeda.

In 1998, al-Zawahiri formally merged the Egyptian Islamic Jihad into al-Qaeda. According to reports by a former al-Qaeda member, he has worked in the al-Qaeda organization since its inception and was a senior member of the group's shura council. He was often described as a "lieutenant" to Osama bin Laden, though bin Laden's chosen biographer has referred to him as the "real brains" of al-Qaeda. On June 16, 2011, al-Qaeda announced that al-Zawahiri had been selected as bin Laden's successor as al-Qaeda's former leader had been killed in a US operation on May 2, 2011.

Alternate names and sobriquets

Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri is pronounced or in Arabic (the latter is in the Classical). Zawahiri is usually spelled Zawahri (from the pronunciation in his native Egyptian Arabic), but is sometimes spelled "Dhawahri" if transliterated directly from Modern Standard Arabic, also called Literary Arabic, in certain academic circles. Using the Intelligence Community Standard for the Transliteration of Arabic Names, it is spelled Zawahri.

Al-Zawahiri has also gone under the names of Abu Muhammad (Abu Mohammed), Abu Fatima, Muhammad Ibrahim, Abu Abdallah, Abu al-Mu'iz, The Doctor, The Teacher, Nur, Ustaz, Abu Mohammed Nur al-Deen, Abdel Muaz (Abdel Moez, Abdel Muez).

Biography

Upbringing and education

Ayman al-Zawahiri was born to an upper middle class family in Maadi, Egypt, a suburb of Cairo, and was reportedly a studious youth. His father, Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri, came from a large family of doctors and scholars. Mohammed Rabie—a Muslim fanatic—became a surgeon, and a medical professor at Cairo University. Ayman al-Zawahiri's mother, Umayma Azzam, came from a wealthy, politically active clan. Ayman excelled in school, loved poetry, "hated violent sports"—which he thought were "inhumane"—and had a deep affection for his mother. His sister Heba Mohamed al-Zawahiri, Professor of Medical Oncology in the National Cancer Institute, Cairo University, described him "silent and shy"

Ayman Zawahiri became both quite pious and political, under the influence of his uncle Mahfouz Azzam, and lecturer Mostafa Kamel Wasfi. Sayyid Qutb preached that to restore Islam and free Muslims, a vanguard of true Muslims modeling itself after the original Companions of the Prophet had to be developed.

By the age of 14, al-Zawahiri had joined the Muslim Brotherhood. The following year the Egyptian government executed Qutb for conspiracy, and al-Zawahiri, along with four other secondary school students, helped form an "underground cell devoted to overthrowing the government and establishing an Islamist state." It was at this early age that al-Zawahiri developed a mission in life, "to put Qutb's vision into action." His cell eventually merged with others to form al-Jihad or Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Al-Zawahiri graduated from Cairo University in 1974 with gayyid giddan. Following that he served three years as a surgeon in the Egyptian Army after which he established a clinic near his parents.

In 1993, Ayman al-Zawahiri sent his younger brother—Muhammad al-Zawahiri—to the Balkans to help run the mujaheddin fighters in Bosnia. Muhammad is known as a logistics expert and is said to be the military commander of Islamic Jihad. Muhammad worked in Bosnia, Croatia, and Albania under the cover of being an International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) official. While hiding in the United Arab Emirates, he was arrested in 2000, then extradited to Egypt where he was sentenced to death. He was held in Tora Prison in Cairo as a political detainee. Security officials said he was the head of the Special Action Committee of Islamic Jihad, which organized terrorist operations. However, after the Egyptian popular uprising in the spring of 2011, on March 17, 2011 he was released from prison by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the interim government of Egypt. His lawyer said he had been held to extract information about his brother Ayman. However, on Sunday March 20, 2011, he was re-arrested.

Marriage and family

In 1978 he married his wife Azza Ahmed Nowari, who was studying philosophy at Cairo University. Many years later, when the United States attacked Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks in 2001, Azza denied ever knowing that Zawahiri had been a jihadi emir (commander) for the last decade, although at least one acquaintance is skeptical of her ignorance of this fact.

The couple had four daughters, Fatima (b. 1981), Umayma, Nabila (b. 1986) and Khadiga (b. 1987), and a son Mohammed, who was a "delicate, well-mannered boy" and "the pet of his older sisters," subject to teasing and bullying in a traditional all-male environment who preferred to "stay at home and help his mother." Ten years after the birth of Mohammed, Azza gave birth to Aisha, who had Down syndrome. In February 2004, Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded, and subsequently stated that Abu Turab Al-Urduni had married one of al-Zawahiri's daughters.

Zaynab Khadr recalled celebrating the engagement of Umayma at the family's house for an all-day party, and al-Zawahiri knocking softly at Umayma's door asking the two girls to please keep their singing and partying quiet as it was nighttime.

Azza and Aisha both died in November 2001, following 9/11. After American bombardment of a Taliban officials building at Gardez, Azza was pinned under debris of a guesthouse roof. Concerned for her modesty, she "refused to be excavated" because "men would see her face." Her four-year-old daughter Aisha had not been hurt by the bombing but died from exposure in the cold night while the rescuers tried to save Azza.

In the first half of 2005, another daughter was born, named Nawwar.

Attempted coup

He eventually became one of Egyptian Islamic Jihad's leading organizers and recruiters. Zawahiri's hope was to recruit military officers and accumulate weapons, waiting for the right moment to launch "a complete overthrow of the existing order." Chief strategist of Al-Jihad was Aboud al-Zumar, a colonel in the military intelligence whose plan was to kill the main leaders of the country, capture the headquarters of the army and State Security, the telephone exchange building, and of course the radio and television building, where news of the Islamic revolution would then be broadcast, unleashing – he expected – a popular uprising against secular authority all over the country."

Imprisonment and torture allegations

Al-Zawahiri was one of hundreds arrested following Sadat's assassination; his lawyer, Montasser el-Zayat, said that Zawahiri was tortured in prison.

In his book, Al-Zawahiri as I Knew Him, Al-Zayat maintains that under torture by the Egyptian police, following his arrest in connection with the murder of Sadat in 1981, Al-Zawahiri revealed the hiding place of Essam al-Qamari, a key member of the Maadi cell of al-Jihad, which led to Al-Qamari's "arrest and eventual execution."

Al-Zawahiri was convicted of dealing in weapons and received a three-year sentence, which he completed in 1984, shortly after his conviction.

Leaving Egypt

In 1985, al-Zawahiri went to Saudi Arabia on Hajj and stayed to practice medicine in Jeddah for a year.He was reported to have first met bin Laden there a little later in 1986. During this time, al-Zawahiri also began reconstituting the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) along with other exiled militants. The group had "very loose ties to their nominal imprisoned leader, Abud al-Zumur."

In Peshwar, al-Zawahiri is thought to have become radicalized by other Al-Jihad members, abandoning his old strategy of a swift coup d'etat to change society from above, and embracing the idea of takfir. In 1991, EIJ broke with al-Zumur, and al-Zawahiri grabbed "the reins of power" to become EIJ leader.

In Peshawar, he met up with Osama bin Laden, who was running a base for mujahideen called Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK); founded by the Palestinian Sheikh Abdullah Yusuf Azzam. The radical position of al-Zawahiri and the other militants of Al-Jihad put them at odds with Sheikh Azzam, with whom they competed for bin Laden's financial resources. Zawahiri carried two false passports, a Swiss one in the name of Amin Uthman and a Dutch one in the name of Mohmud Hifnawi.

Relation with Islamic Republic of Iran

Zawahiri has allegedly worked with the Islamic Republic of Iran on behalf of al-Qaeda. Lawrence Wright reports that EIJ operative Ali Mohammed "told the FBI that al-Jihad had planned a coup in Egypt in 1990." Zawahiri had studied the 1979 Islamist Islamic Revolution and "sought training from the Iranians" as to how to duplicate their feat against the Egyptian government.

He offered Iran information about an Egyptian government plan to storm several islands in the Persian Gulf that both Iran and the United Arab Emirates lay claim to. According to Mohammed, in return for this information, the Iranian government paid Zawahiri $2 million and helped train members of al-Jihad in a coup attempt that never actually took place.

However, in public Zawahiri has harshly denounced the Iranian government. In December 2007 he said, "We discovered Iran collaborating with America in its invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq." In the same video messages, he moreover chides Iran for "repeating the ridiculous joke that says that al-Qaida and the Taliban are agents of America," before playing a video clip in which Ayatollah Rafsanjani says, "In Afghanistan, they were present in Afghanistan, because of Al-Qa'ida; and the Taliban, who created the Taliban? America is the one who created the Taliban, and America's friends in the region are the ones who financed and armed the Taliban." He also said that "Iran Stabbed a Knife into the Back of the Islamic Nation."

In April 2008, Zawahiri blamed Iranian state media and Al-Manar for perpetuating the "lie" that "there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no-one else did in history" in order to discredit the Al Qaeda network. Zawahiri was referring to some 9/11 conspiracy theories according to which Al Qaeda was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

On the seventh anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, Zawahiri released a 90-minute tape in which he blasted "The guardian of Muslims in Tehran" for recognizing "the two hireling governments" in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Attacks in Egypt

In 1993 Zawahiri traveled to the United States, where he addressed several California mosques under his Abdul Mu'iz pseudonym, relying on his credentials from the Kuwaiti Red Crescent to raise money for Afghan children who had been injured by Soviet land mines—he only raised $2000.

For his trips through Western Europe, al-Zawahiri shaved off his beard and wore Western clothing.

One result of Zawahiri and EIJ's connection with Iran may have been the use of suicide bombing in August 1993 in an attempt on the life of Egyptian Interior Minister Hasan al-Alfi, the man heading the effort to quash the campaign of Islamist killings in Egypt. It failed, as did an attempt to assassinate Egyptian prime minister Atef Sidqi three months later. The bombing of Sidqi's car injured 21 Egyptians and killed a young schoolgirl, Shayma Abdel-Halim. It followed two years of killings by another Islamist group, al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, that had killed over 200 people. Her funeral became a public spectacle, with her coffin carried through the streets of Cairo and crowds shouting, "Terrorism is the enemy of God!" The police arrested 280 more of al-Jihad's members, and executed six.

Zawahiri later wrote of his anger with the public reaction. "This meant that they wanted my daughter, who was two at the time, and the daughters of other colleagues, to be orphans. Who cried or cared for our daughters?"

Expulsion from Sudan and time spent in Russia

Following the 1994 execution of the sons of Ahmad Salama Mabruk and Mohammed Sharaf for betraying Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the militants were ordered to leave the Sudan. At this time he is said to have "become a phantom" but is thought to have traveled widely to "Switzerland and Sarajevo. A fake passport he was using shows that he traveled to Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong."

On December 1, 1996, Ahmad Salama Mabruk and Mahmud Hisham al-Hennawi – both carrying false passports – accompanied al-Zawahiri on a trip to Chechnya, where they hoped to re-establish the faltering al-Jihad. Their leader was traveling under the name Abdullah Imam Mohammed Amin, and trading on his medical credentials for legitimacy. The group switched vehicles three times, but were arrested within hours of entering Russian territory and spent five months in a Makhachkala prison awaiting trial. The trio pled innocence, maintaining their disguise and having other al-Jihad members from Bavari-C send the Russian authorities pleas for leniency for their "merchant" colleagues who had been wrongly arrested; and Russian Member of Parliament Nadyr Khachiliev echoed the pleas for their speedy release as al-Jihad members Ibrahim Eidarous and Tharwat Salah Shehata traveled to Dagestan to plead for their release. Shehata received permission to visit the prisoners, and is believed to have smuggled them $3000 which was later confiscated from their cell, and to have given them a letter which the Russians didn't bother to translate. Shehata was sent on to Chechnya, where he met with Ibn Khattab. However, some have raised doubts as to the true nature of al-Zawahiri's encounter with the Russians: Jamestown Foundation scholar Evgenii Novikov has argued that it seems unlikely that the Russians would not have been able to determine who he was, given their well-trained Arabists and the obviously suspicious act of Muslims crossing illegally a border with multiple false identities and encrypted documents in Arabic. Assassinated former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko alleged, among other things, that during this time, al-Zawahiri was indeed being trained by the FSB, and that he was not the only link between al-Qaeda and the FSB. Former KGB officer and writer Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy supported Litvinenko's claim and said that Litvinenko "was responsible for securing the secrecy of Al-Zawahiri's arrival in Russia, who was trained by FSB instructors in Dagestan, Northern Caucasus, in 1996–1997."

Zawahiri and other EIJ members found refuge in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda families had settled. About 250 people were gathered there altogether.

While there Zawahiri learned of a "Nonviolence Initiative" being organized in Egypt to end the terror campaign that had killed hundreds and resulting government crackdown that had imprisoned thousands. Zawahiri angrily opposed this "surrender" in letters to the London newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat. Together with members of al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, he helped organize a massive attack on tourists at the Temple of Hatshepsut to sabotage the initiative by provoking the government into repression.

The attack by six men dressed in police uniforms, succeeded in machine-gunning and hacking to death 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians, including "a five-year-old British child and four Japanese couples on their honeymoons," and devastated the Egyptian tourist industry for a number of years. Nonetheless the Egyptian reaction was not what Zawahiri had hoped for. The attack so stunned and angered Egyptian society that Islamists denied responsibility. Zawahiri blamed the police for the killing, but also held the tourists responsible for their own deaths for coming to Egypt,

The people of Egypt consider the presence of these foreign tourists to be aggression against Muslims and Egypt, ... The young men are saying that this is our country and not a place for frolicking and enjoyment, especially for you.

The massacre was so unpopular that no terror attacks occurred in Egypt for several years thereafter. Zawahiri was sentenced to death in absentia in 1999 by an Egyptian military tribunal.

Fatwa with Osama bin Laden

On February 23, 1998, he issued a joint fatwa with Osama bin Laden under the title "World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders". Zawahiri, not bin Laden, is thought to have been the actual author of the fatwa.

Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri organized an al-Qaeda congress on June 24, 1998. A week prior to the beginning of the conference, a group of well-armed al-Zawahiri's assistants had left by jeeps in the direction of Herat. Following the instructions of their patron, in the town of Koh-i-Doshakh they met three unknown slavic-looking men who had arrived from Russia via Iran. After their arrival in Kandahar, they split up. One of the Russians was directly escorted to al-Zawahiri and he did not participate in the conference. The Western intelligence succeeded in acquiring photographs of him, but he disappeared for six years. According to Axis Globe, in 2004, when Qatar and U.S. investigated Russian embassy officials whom the United Arab Emirates had arrested in connection to the murder of Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev in Qatar, computer software precisely established that that a man who had walked to the Russian embassy in Doha was the same one who visited al-Zawahiri prior to the Al-Qaida conference.

The 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings were a series of attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998, in which hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous truck bomb explosions at the United States embassies in the major East African cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya. The attacks brought Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to international attention.

Following the 2000 USS Cole bombing, Mohammed Atef was moved to Kandahar, Zawahiri to Kabul, and Bin Laden fled to Kabul, later joining Atef when he realised no American reprisal attacks were forthcoming.

Hamid Mir is reported to have said that he believed that Ayman al-Zawahiri was the operational head of al-Qaeda, and that "[h]e is the person who can do the things that happened on Sept. 11."

Activities and whereabouts after the September 11 attacks

On October 10, 2001, al-Zawahiri appeared on the initial list of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's top 22 Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by U.S. President George W. Bush. In early November 2001, the Taliban government announced they were bestowing official Afghan citizenship on him, as well as Bin Laden, Mohammed Atef, Saif al-Adl, and Shaykh Asim Abdulrahman.

In December 2001, al-Zawahiri published the book Knights Under the Prophet's Banner outlining al-Qaeda's ideology. English translations of this book were published; excerpts are available online.

Following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, al-Zawahiri's whereabouts are unknown, but he is generally thought to be in tribal Pakistan. Although he releases videos of himself frequently (see Messages of Ayman al-Zawahiri), al-Zawahiri has not appeared alongside bin Laden in any of them since 2003. In 2003, it was rumored that he was under arrest in Iran, although this was never confirmed. In 2004, the Pakistan Army launched an aggressive operation in Wana, Pakistan. Reports began to surface that he was trapped in the center of the conflict by the Army. However, after weeks of fighting, the Army captured the area. It was later revealed that he either escaped or was never among the fighters. As the conflict spread into the tribal areas of western Pakistan, Ayman al-Zawahiri became a prime target of the ISI's Directorate for Joint Counterintelligence Bureau (J-COIN Bueurau). However, despite a series of operations they were unable to capture him.

On January 13, 2006, the Central Intelligence Agency, aided by Pakistan's ISI, launched an airstrike on Damadola, a Pakistani village near the Afghan border where they believed al-Zawahiri was located. The airstrike was supposed to kill al-Zawahiri and this was reported in international news over the following days. Many victims of the airstrike were buried without being identified. Anonymous U.S. government officials claimed that some terrorists were killed and the Bajaur tribal area government confirmed that at least four terrorists were among the dead. Anti-American protests broke out around the country and the Pakistani government condemned the U.S. attack and the loss of innocent life. On January 30, a new video was released showing al-Zawahiri unhurt. The video discussed the airstrike, but did not reveal if al-Zawahiri was present in the village at that time.

Al-Zawahiri supplied direction for the Lal Masjid siege, codename Operation Silence, in July 2007. This was the first time to confirmed that that Al-Zawahiri was taking militant steps against the Pakistan Government, and guiding Islamic militants against the State of Pakistan. The Pakistan Army troops and Special Service Group taking control of the Red Mosque in Islamabad found letters from al-Zawahiri directing Islamic militants Abdul Rashid Ghazi and Abdul Aziz Ghazi, who ran the mosque and adjacent madrasah. This conflict resulted in 100 deaths.

On August 1, 2008, CBS News reported that it had obtained a copy of an intercepted letter dated July 29, 2008, from unnamed sources in Pakistan, which urgently requested a doctor to treat al-Zawahiri. The letter indicated that al-Zawahiri was critically injured in a US missile strike at Azam Warsak village in South Waziristan on July 28 that also reportedly killed al Qaeda explosives expert Abu Khabab al-Masri. Taliban Mehsud spokesman Maulvi Umar told the Associated Press on August 2, 2008, that the report of al-Zawahiri's injury was false.

In early September 2008, Pakistan Army claimed that they "almost" captured al-Zawahiri after getting information that he and his wife were in the Mohmand Agency, in northwest Pakistan. After raiding the area, officials didn't find him.

Emergence as al-Qaeda's chief commander

Emergence

On April 30, 2009, the US State Department reported that Zawahiri had emerged as al-Qaeda's operational and strategic commander and that Osama bin Laden was now only the ideological figurehead of the organization.

Following the death of bin Laden, former Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism Juan Zarate said Zawahiri would "clearly assume the mantle of leadership" of al-Qaeda. But a senior U.S. administration official said that although al-Zawahiri was likely to be al-Qaeda's next leader, his authority was not "universally accepted" among al-Qaeda's followers, particularly in the Gulf region. Zarate said Zawahiri was more controversial and less charismatic than bin Laden. Rashad Mohammad Ismail (aka Abu Al-Fida), a leading member of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, stated that Zawahiri was the best candidate.

Formal appointment

Al-Zawahiri's succession to command of al-Qaeda was announced on several of their websites on June 16, 2011. On the same day, al-Qaeda renewed its position that Israel was an illegitimate state and that it would not accept any compromise on Palestine.

The delayed announcement led some analysts to speculate that there was quarreling within al-Qaeda. "It doesn't suggest a vast reservoir of accumulated goodwill for him," said one celebrity journalist on CNN. Both U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen maintain that the delay did not signal any kind of dispute within al-Qaeda, and Mullen reiterated U.S. death threats toward al-Zawahiri. According to U.S. officials within the Obama administration and Robert Gates, Zawahiri would find the leadership difficult as, while intelligent, he lacks combat experience and the charisma of Osama bin Laden.

Views on female combatants

Zawahiri has said in an interview that the group does not have women combatants and that a woman's role is limited to caring for the homes and children of al-Qaeda fighters. This resulted in a debate regarding the role of mujahid women like Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi.

Promotional activities

Video and audio messages

May 2003: Tape was broadcast by al-Jazeera and included the directives (interpreted) "Raze/Singe the floor out from under their feet... the political and corporate interests of the United States... and Norway." which caused a global lockdown and extensive confusion for Norway.

Early September 2003: A video showing al-Zawahiri and bin Laden walking together, as well as an audiotape, is released to the al-Jazeera network.

September 9, 2004: Another video is released announcing more assaults.

August 4, 2005: He issues a televised statement blaming Tony Blair and his government's foreign policy for the July 2005 London bombings. September 1, 2005: al-Jazeera broadcasts a video message from Mohammed Sidique Khan, one of bombers of the London metro. His message is followed by another message from al-Zawahiri, blaming again Blair for the bombings. September 19, 2005: He claims responsibility for the London bombings.

December 7, 2005: The full 40 minute interview from September is posted on the Internet with previously unseen video footage. See below for links.

April 3, 2008: He said Al Qaeda does not kill innocents and that its leader Osama bin Laden is healthy. The questions asked his views about Egypt and Iraq as well as Hamas. April 22, 2008: An audio interview in which, among other subjects, Ayman al-Zawahiri attacks the Shiite Iran and Hezbollah for blaming the 9/11 attacks on Israel, and thus discrediting Al-Qaeda. On the 7th anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, Zawahri released a 90-minute tape

June 2, 2009: Audio messages claiming Barack Obama is not welcome in Egypt.

July 15, 2009: Al-Zawahiri urges Pakistanis to support the Taliban.

October 4, 2009: The New York Times reported that Al Zawahiri had asserted that Libya had tortured Ibn Al Sheikh Al Libi to death. Al Libi was a key source the George W. Bush Presidency had claimed established that Iraq had provided training to Al Qaeda in Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction. December 14, 2009: In an audio recording released on December 14, 2009, Zawahiri renewed calls to establish an Islamic state in Israel and urged his followers to “seek jihad against Jews” and their supporters. He also called for jihad against America and the West, and labeled Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, King Abdullah II of Jordan, and King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia as the “brothers of Satan”. June 8, 2011: Zawahari released his first video since the death of Osama bin Laden, praising bin Laden and warning the USA of reprisal attacks, but without staking a claim on the leadership of al-Qaeda.

Online Q&A;

In mid-December 2007, Ayman al-Zawahiri's spokespeople announced plans for an "open interview" on a handful of Islamic Web sites. The administrators of four known jihadist web sites have been authorized to collect and forward questions, "unedited," they pledge, and "regardless of whether they are in support of or are against" al-Qaida, which would be forwarded to al-Zawahiri on January 16. Zawahiri responded to the questions later in 2008; among the things he said were that al-Qaeda did not kill innocents, and that al-Qaeda would move to target Israel once it was finished in Iraq.

Wanted in the USA and Egypt

For their leading role in anti-Egyptian Government attacks in the 1990s, Ayman al-Zawahiri and his brother Muhammad al-Zawahiri were sentenced to death in the 1999 Egyptian case of the Returnees from Albania.

Ayman al-Zawahiri is under indictment in the United States for this role in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. The Rewards for Justice Program of the U.S. Department of State is offering a reward of up to US$25 million for information about his location.

See also

Egyptian Islamic Jihad

Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif

Messages of Ayman al-Zawahiri

Messages of Osama bin Laden

References

[References]

Bibliography

Kepel, Gilles; & Jean-Pierre Milelli (2010), Al Qaeda in its own words, Harvard University Press, Cambridge & London, ISBN 978-0-674-02804-3.

Mansfield, Laura (2006), His Own Words: A Translation of the Writings of Dr. Ayman Al Zawahiri, Lulu Pub.

al-Zawahiri, Ayman, L'absolution, Milelli, Villepreux, ISBN 978-2-916590-05-9 (French translation of Al-Zawahiri's latest book).

External links

;Statements and interviews

Fatwa from World Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders, Federation of American Scientists, Statement with bin Laden, February 23, 1998

Excerpts and video footage released December 1, 2005 from the September 2005 interview, MEMRI

Al-Zawahiri Calls on Muslims to Give Aid to Earthquake Victims in Pakistan

Letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi, copy at GlobalSecurity.org

;Articles

The Man Behind Bin Laden, Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker, September 16, 2002

Al-Zawahiri: US faces Afghan, Iraq defeat, Aljazeera English, September 9, 2004

Ayman Al-Zawahiri's Knights under the Prophet's Banner: the al-Qaeda Manifesto, Youssef H. Aboul-Enein, Military Review, January–February 2005

report on the al-Zarqawi video tape, CNN, January 2006

Responses to some of the Online Q&A;

Category:1951 births Category:Living people Category:People from Cairo Category:Abdullah Yusuf Azzam Category:Egyptian Islamic Jihad Category:Cairo University alumni Category:Missing people Category:Egyptian Muslims Category:Egyptian al-Qaeda members Category:Egyptian expatriates in Pakistan Category:Islamic studies scholars Category:Fugitives wanted by the United States Category:Fugitives wanted by Egypt Category:Fugitives wanted on terrorism charges Category:FBI Most Wanted Terrorists Category:People imprisoned on charges of terrorism Category:Egyptian theologians Category:Egyptian surgeons

Coordinates	°′″N°′″N
Name	David Duke
State house	Louisiana
District	81st
Term start	1990
Term end	1992
Preceded	Chuck Cusimano
Succeeded	David Vitter
Residence	Mandeville, Louisiana, U.S.
Caption	David Duke in Flanders, Belgium, 2008
Birth name	David Ernest Duke
Birth date	July 01, 1950
Birth place	Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S.
Occupation	Author, political activist
Party	Republican since 1989, Democratic until December, 1988
Religion	Christianity
Spouse	Chloê Eleanor Hardin (m. 1974 - divorced 1984); 2 daughters
Website	http://www.davidduke.com
Education	Ph.D. History (2005) Ukrainian Interregional Academy of Personnel Management (MAUP)

David Ernest Duke (born July 1, 1950) is an American white nationalist activist and writer, and former Republican Louisiana State Representative. He was also a former candidate in the Republican presidential primaries in 1992, and in the Democratic presidential primaries in 1988. Duke has unsuccessfully run for the Louisiana State Senate, U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, and Governor of Louisiana.

A former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Duke describes himself as a racial realist, asserting that "all people have a basic human right to preserve their own heritage." He is a strong advocate of opposition to Zionism as well as what he asserts to be Jewish control of the Federal Reserve Bank, the federal government and the media. Duke supports anti-immigration, both legal and illegal, preservation of what he labels Western culture and traditionalist Christian "family values", strict Constitutionalism, abolition of the Internal Revenue Service, voluntary racial segregation, ardent anti-communism and white separatism.

Youth and early adulthood

Duke was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma to David H. Duke and Alice Maxine Crick. As the son of an engineer for Shell Oil, Duke frequently moved with his family around the world. They lived a short time in the Netherlands, before settling in Louisiana. In the late 1960s, Duke met the leader of the white supremacist National Alliance, William Pierce, who would remain a life-long influence. Duke joined the Ku Klux Klan in 1967.

Duke studied at Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge, and in 1970, he formed a white student group called the White Youth Alliance; it was affiliated with the National Socialist White People's Party. The same year, to protest William Kunstler's appearance at Tulane University in New Orleans, Duke appeared at a demonstration in Nazi uniform. Picketing and holding parties on the anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birth, he became notorious on the LSU campus for wearing a Nazi uniform.

Duke went to Laos for ten weeks in 1971 to teach English to Laotian military officers and claimed to have served on cargo flights for Air America, He graduated from Louisiana State University in 1974.

Family and personal life

While working in the White Youth Alliance, Duke met Chloê Hardin, who became active in the group. They remained companions throughout college and married in 1974. Hardin is the mother of Duke's two daughters, Erika and Kristin. They divorced in 1984-arguably because Chloe was fed up with Duke's womanizing- and Chloe moved to West Palm Beach to be near her parents. There she became involved with Duke's Klan friend, Don Black, whom she later married.

As of 2009, David Duke was registered as living in Salzburg, Austria. From there he ran an Internet business, taking and selling photographs of rare birds and other wildlife. Local authorities have stated that as long as he does not break any laws, Duke is allowed to stay in Austria if he wishes. Duke has stated: "I'm not in Austria for any political activities. I just come to Austria to relax – the mountains are beautiful. The Austrian Alps are just beautiful. There's beauty all over the world." In May 2009, Duke issued a statement denying that he resides in Austria and saying that he is a resident of Mandeville, Louisiana, and is registered as a taxpayer in his city, state and on the national level.

Political activities

Early campaigns

Duke first ran for the Louisiana State Senate as a Democrat from a Baton Rouge district in 1975. In 1979, he ran as a Democrat for the 10th District Senate seat and finished second in a three-candidate race with 9,897 votes (26 percent). Duke allegedly conducted a direct-mail appeal in 1987, using the identity and mailing-list of the Georgia Forsyth County Defense League without permission. League officials described it as a fund-raising scam.

1988 Democratic Presidential Campaign

In 1988, Duke ran initially in the Democratic presidential primaries. His campaign failed to make much of an impact, with the one notable exemption of winning the little known New Hampshire Vice-Presidential primary. Duke, having failed to gain much traction as a Democrat, then successfully sought the Presidential nomination of the Populist Party. He appeared on the ballot for President in eleven states and was a write-in candidate in some other states, some with Trenton Stokes of Arkansas for Vice President, and on other state ballots with Floyd Parker for Vice President. He received just 47,047 votes, for 0.04 percent of the combined, national popular vote.

1989: Successful run in special election for Louisiana House seat

In December 1988, Duke changed his political affiliation from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.

In 1988, Republican State Representative Charles Cusimano of Metairie resigned his District 89 seat to become a 24th Judicial District Court judge, and a special election was called early in 1989 to select a successor. Duke entered the race to succeed Cusimano and faced several opponents, including fellow Republicans, John Spier Treen, a brother of former Governor David C. Treen, Delton Charles, a school board member, and Roger F. Villere, Jr., who operates Villere's Florist in Metairie. Duke finished first in the primary with 3,995 votes (33.1%). As no one received a majority of the vote in the first round, a runoff election was required between Duke and Treen, who polled 2,277 votes (18.9%) in the first round of balloting. John Treen's candidacy was endorsed by U.S. President George H. W. Bush, former President Ronald Reagan, and other notable Republicans, as well as the Democrat Victor Bussie (president of the Louisiana AFL-CIO) and Edward J. Steimel (president of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry and former director of the "good government" think tank, the Public Affairs Research Council). Duke, however, hammered Treen on a statement the latter had made indicating a willingness to entertain higher property taxes, anathema in that suburban district. Duke with 8,459 votes (50.7%) defeated Treen, who polled 8,232 votes (49.3%). He served in the House from 1990 until 1992.

As a short-term legislator, Duke was, in the words of a colleague, Ron Gomez of Lafayette, "so single minded, he never really became involved in the nuts and bolts of House rules and parliamentary procedure. It was just that shortcoming that led to the demise of most of his attempts at lawmaking."

One legislative issue pushed by Duke was the requirement that welfare recipients be tested for the use of narcotics. The recipients had to show themselves drug-free to receive state and federal benefits under his proposal.

Gomez recalls having met and interviewed Duke in the middle 1970s when Duke was a state senate candidate: "He was still in his mid-20s and very non-descript. Tall and slimly built, he had a very prominent nose, flat cheek bones, a slightly receding chin and straight dark brown hair. The interview turned out to be quite innocuous, and I hadn't thought about it again until Duke came to my legislative desk, and we shook hands. Who was this guy? Tall and well-built with a perfect nose, a model's cheek bones, prominent chin, blue eyes and freshly coiffed blond hair, he looked like a movie star. He obviously didn't remember from the radio encounter, and I was content to leave it at that."

Consistent with Gomez's observation, Duke in the latter 1980s reportedly had his nose thinned and chin augmented. Following his election to the Louisiana House of Representatives, he shaved his mustache.

Gomez continued: "He once presented a bill on the floor, one of the few which he had managed to get out of committee. He finished his opening presentation and strolled with great self-satisfaction back up the aisle to his seat. In his mind, he had spoken, made his presentation and that was that. Before he had even reached his desk and re-focused on the proceedings, another first-term member had been recognized for the floor and immediately moved to table the bill. The House voted for the motions effectively killing the bill. That and similar procedures were used against him many times." Gomez said that he recalls Duke obtaining the passage of only a single bill, legislation which prohibited movie producers or book publishers from compensating jurors for accounts of their court experiences.

Gomez added that Duke's "tenure in the House was short and uninspired. Never has anyone parlayed an election by such a narrow margin to such a minor position to such international prominence. He has run for numerous other positions without success but has always had some effect, usually negative, on the outcome."

Gomez continued: Duke's "new message was that he had left the Klan, shed the Nazi uniform he had proudly worn in many previous appearances and only wanted to serve the people. He eliminated his high-octane anti-Semitic rhetoric. He was particularly concerned with the plight of 'European-Americans.' He never blatantly spoke of race as a factor but referred to the 'growing underclass.' He used the tried and true demagoguery of class envy to sell his message: excessive taxpayers' money spent on welfare, school busing practices, affirmative action... and set-aside programs. He also embraced a subject near and dear to every Jefferson Parish voter, protection of the homestead exemption."

Duke launched unsuccessful campaigns for the U.S. Senate in 1990 and governor in 1991. Villere did not again seek office but instead concentrated his political activity within the GOP organization.

1990 campaign for U.S. Senate

In 1990, in the October 6 primary, Duke ran as a Republican against three Democrats including incumbent Senator J. Bennett Johnston, Jr.

The Republican Party endorsed state Senator Ben Bagert of New Orleans, but national GOP officials anticipated that Bagert could not win and was fragmenting Johnston's support; so funding for Bagert's campaign was halted, and he dropped out two days before the election, though his name remained on the ballot.

Duke's views prompted some of his critics (including Republicans) to form the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism, which directed media attention to Duke's statements of hostility to blacks and Jews. Duke received 43.51 percent (607,391 votes) of the vote to Johnston's 53.93 percent (752,902 votes).

1991 campaign for Governor of Louisiana

Despite repudiation by the Republican Party, Duke ran for Louisiana Governor in 1991. In the open primary, Duke was second to former governor Edwin Edwards in votes; thus, he faced Edwards in a runoff. In the initial round, Duke received 32% of the vote. Incumbent Governor Buddy Roemer, who had switched from the Democratic to Republican parties during his term, came in third with 27% of the vote. Duke effectively killed Roemer's bid for re-election. While Duke had a sizable core constituency of devoted supporters, many voted for him as a "protest vote" to register dissatisfaction with Louisiana's establishment politicians. Duke said he was the spokesman for the "White majority."

The interest group, the Louisiana Coalition against Racism and Nazism, rallied against the election of Duke as governor. Among its leaders was Beth Rickey, a moderate member of the Louisiana Republican State Central Committee and a Ph.D. student at Tulane University, who began to follow Duke to record his speeches and expose what she saw as instances of racist and neo-Nazi remarks. For a time, Duke took Rickey to lunch, introduced her to his daughters, telephoned her late at night, and tried to convince her that he was a mainstream conservative in the Reagan mold.

Between the primary and the runoff, called the "general election" under Louisiana election rules (in which all candidates run on one ballot, regardless of party), white supremacist organizations from around the country contributed to his campaign fund. Duke was endorsed by James Meredith, a black civil rights figure.

Duke's success garnered national media attention. While Duke gained the backing of the quixotic former Alexandria Mayor John K. Snyder, he won few serious endorsements in Louisiana. Celebrities and organizations donated thousands to Edwards' campaign. Referencing Edwards' long-standing problem with accusations of corruption, popular bumper stickers read: "Vote for the Crook. It's Important," and "Vote for the Lizard, not the Wizard." When a reporter asked Edwards what he needed to do to triumph over Duke, Edwards replied with a smile: "Stay alive."

Edwards received 1,057,031 votes (61.2%). Duke's 671,009 votes represented 38.8% of the total. Duke claimed victory, saying: "I won my constituency. I won 55% of the white vote." Exit polls confirmed that he had. He received 119,115 (0.94%) votes in the primaries, but no delegates to the national convention. His presidential campaign inspired a song by Skankin' Pickle.

In 1992 a film was released that investigated Duke's appeal among some white voters. Backlash: Race and the American Dream explored the demagogic issues of Duke's platform, examining his use of black crime, welfare, affirmative action and white supremacy and tied Duke to a legacy of other white backlash politicians, such as Lester G. Maddox and George C. Wallace, Jr., and the use in the 1988 Presidential campaign of Pres. George H.W. Bush of these same racially themed hot buttons.

Late 1990s campaigns

When Johnston announced his retirement in 1996, Duke ran again for the U.S. Senate. He polled 141,489 votes (11.5%). Former Republican state representative Woody Jenkins of Baton Rouge and Democrat Mary Landrieu of New Orleans, the former state treasurer, went into the general election contest. Duke was fourth in the nine-person, jungle primary race.

Because of the sudden resignation of powerful Republican incumbent Bob Livingston in 1999, a special election was held in Louisiana's First Congressional District. Duke sought the seat as a Republican and received 19% of the vote. He finished a close third, thus failing to make the runoff. His candidacy was repudiated by the Republicans. Republican Party Chairman Jim Nicholson remarked: "There is no room in the party of Lincoln for a Klansman like David Duke."

In 2004, Duke's bodyguard, roommate, and longtime associate Roy Armstrong made a bid for the United States House of Representatives to serve Louisiana's First Congressional District. In the open primary Armstrong finished second in the six candidate field with 6.69% of the vote but Republican Bobby Jindal received 78.40% winning the seat. Duke was the head advisor of Armstrong's campaign.

Affiliations

Knights of the Ku Klux Klan

In 1974, David Duke founded the Louisiana-based Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKKK), a Louisiana Ku Klux Klan organization, shortly after graduating from LSU. He became Grand Wizard of the KKKK. A follower of Duke, Thomas Robb, changed the title of Grand Wizard to National Director, and replaced the Klan's white robes with business suits. Duke first received broad public attention during this time, as he endeavored to market himself in the mid-1970s as a new brand of Klansman: well-groomed, engaged, and professional. Duke also reformed the organization, promoting nonviolence and legality, and, for the first time in the Klan's history, women were accepted as equal members and Catholics were encouraged to apply for membership. Duke would repeatedly insist that the Klan was "not anti-black", but rather "pro-white" and "pro-Christian."

NAAWP

In 1980, Duke left the Klan and formed the National Association for the Advancement of White People (NAAWP).

On May 20, 2004, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) became outraged when it discovered that David Duke had chosen New Orleans to host his International NAAWP Conference during the NAACP's Big Easy Rally to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

Ernst Zündel and the Zundelsite

Duke has expressed his support for Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel, a German who lived in Canada. Duke made a number of statements in support of Zündel and his Holocaust denial campaign. After the aging Zündel was deported from Canada to Germany and imprisoned in Germany on charges of inciting the masses to ethnic hatred, Duke referred to him as a "political prisoner".

Interregional Academy of Personnel Management

In September 2005, Duke received a Kandidat Nauk degree in History from the Ukrainian Interregional Academy of Personnel Management (MAUP).

His doctoral thesis was titled "Zionism as a Form of Ethnic Supremacism." Prior to earning his Ph.D., Duke had received an honorary doctorate. Anti-Defamation League claims that MAUP is the main source of antisemitic activity and publishing in Ukraine, and its "anti-Semitic actions" were "strongly condemned" by Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk and various Jewish interests and anti-racist organizations. The Anti-Defamation League describes it as a "University of Hate". Duke has taught an international relations and a history course at MAUP.

New Orleans Protocol

Shortly after his release from prison for tax fraud in 2004, Duke organized a weekend gathering of "European Nationalists", in the vein of white nationalism, in Kenner, Louisiana. In an attempt to overcome the splintering and division that had followed the death of William Pierce in 2002, he presented a unity proposal for peace within the movement and a better image amongst outsiders. His proposal was accepted and is now known as the New Orleans Protocol (NOP). It pledges adherents to a pan-European outlook, recognizing national and ethnic allegiance, but stressing the value of all European peoples. It has three provisions: #"Zero tolerance for violence." #"Honorable and ethical behavior in relations with other signatory groups. This includes not denouncing others who have signed this protocol. In other words, no enemies on the right." #"Maintaining a high tone in our arguments and public presentations." Those who signed the pact on May 29, 2004 include Duke, Paul Fromm, Don Black, Willis Carto, Kevin Alfred Strom, and John Tyndall (signing as an individual, not on behalf of his British National Party). The book is out of print and difficult to find; however, according to Tyler Bridges, The Times-Picayune obtained a copy and traced its proceeds to Duke who compiled the information from women's self-help magazines.

To raise the money to re-publish a new, updated edition of My Awakening, Duke instigated a 21-day fundraising drive on November 26, 2007 where he had to raise "$25,344 by a December 17 deadline for the printers." Duke states this drive is necessary because the work "has become the most important book in the entire world in the effort to awaken our people for our heritage and freedom."

Jewish Supremacism

In 2002, Duke traveled to Eastern Europe to promote his book, Jewish Supremacism: My Awakening on the Jewish Question in Russia in 2003. The book purports to "examine and document elements of ethnic supremacism that have existed in the Jewish community from historical to modern times." The book is dedicated to Israel Shahak, a critical author of what Shahak saw as supremacist religious teachings in Jewish culture. Former Boris Yeltsin administration official and prominent antisemitic politician Boris Mironov wrote an introduction for the Russian edition, called The Jewish Question Through the Eyes of an American.

The ADL office in Moscow urged the Moscow prosecutor to open an investigation of Mironov. The ADL office initiated a letter from a prominent Duma member to Russia’s Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov, urging a criminal case be opened against the author and the Russian publisher of Duke's book. The letter by Aleksandr Fedulov described the book as antisemitic and as violating Russian anti-hate crime laws. Around December 2001 Prosecutor's office closed the investigation of Boris Mironov and Jewish Supremacism. In a public letter, Yury Biryukov, First Deputy of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, stated that a socially-psychological examination, which was conducted as a part of the investigation, concluded that the book and the actions of Boris Mironov did not break Russian hate-crime laws.

Duke says his views had been "vindicated" with the publication of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, and said he was "surprised how excellent [the paper] is". Duke dedicated several radio webcasts to the book and the authors comparing it to his work Jewish Supremacism, although Walt stated: "I have always found Mr. Duke's views reprehensible, and I am sorry he sees this article as consistent with his view of the world".

Duke says that his books "have become two of the two most influential and important books in the world." though Duke had denied the book is motivated by antisemitism. At one time, the book was sold in the main lobby of the building of Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament). The first printing of 5,000 copies sold out in several weeks.

In 2004, the book was published in the United States. Originally published in English and Russian, the book has subsequently been translated internationally into Swedish, Ukrainian, Persian, Hungarian, Spanish. and most recently (2010) into Finnish (ISBN 978-952-92-8137-4). In 2007, an updated edition was published which Duke purports to be a "fine quality hardback edition with full color dust jacket and it has a new index and a number of timely additions". Duke has an account on Stormfront which he uses to post articles from his own website, www.davidduke.com, as well as polling forum members for opinions and questions, in particular during his internet broadcasts. Duke has worked with Don Black on numerous projects including Operation Red Dog in 1980.

On February 5, 2002, Duke said, on his Internet radio show, that Ariel Sharon was "the world's worst terrorist" and that Mossad was involved in the September 11 attacks. The broadcast said that Zionists were behind the attacks in order to reduce sympathy for Muslim nations in the West, and that the number of Israelis killed in the attack was lower than it would be under normal circumstances, citing early assessments by The Jerusalem Post and "the legendary involvement of Israeli nationals in businesses at the World Trade Center". According to Duke, this indicated that Israeli security services had prior knowledge of the attack.

On August 5, 2005, Duke published an article stating support for Cindy Sheehan, saying that:

The Iraq war and her son's death did not defend America from hatred or terrorism ... In fact, the war is massively increasing hatred and terrorism. For every one terrorist killed in Iraq, we are creating thousands more who hate and want to hurt America and Americans. This is the surest way to lose the war on terror, not win it.

On February 4, 2009, Duke repeatedly called MSNBC pundit Keith Olbermann "untermensch" on his radio show in response to being labeled "Worst Person in the World" on Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

Public appearances

Public address in Syria

On November 24, 2005, Duke visited Damascus, Syria, addressing a rally which was broadcast on Syrian television, and later giving an interview. During the rally, he referred to Israel as a "war-mongering country" and stated that Zionists "occupy most of the American media and now control much of the American government…It is not just the West Bank of Palestine, it is not just the Golan Heights that are occupied by the Zionists, but Washington D.C. and New York and London and many other capitals of the world.” He concluded by stating: "Your fight for freedom is the same as our fight for freedom.” After speaking at the rally, Duke gave an interview where he said that Israel "makes the Nazi state look very, very moderate." Syrian parliament member Muhammad Habash later stated that Duke's visit gave Syrians a "new and very positive view of the average American."

Comments in the media

Since 2005, Duke has appeared three times on Current Issues, a Lafayette, Louisiana–based television show hosted and produced by Palestinian-American Hesham Tillawi, which has recently been picked up by Bridges TV. Show host Tillawi gave Duke the opportunity to discourse at length about his beliefs about Jewish supremacism. On a show in October 2005, Duke claimed that Jewish extremists are responsible for undermining the morality of America and are attempting to "wash the world in blood."

After John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's paper on the Israel Lobby appeared in March 2006, Duke praised the paper in a number of articles on his website, on his March 18 Live Web Radio Broadcast, and on MSNBC's March 21 Scarborough Country program. According to The New York Sun, Duke said in an email, "It is quite satisfying to see a body in the premier American university essentially come out and validate every major point I have been making since even before the war even started." Duke added that "the task before us is to wrest control of America's foreign policy and critical junctures of media from the Jewish extremist Neocons that seek to lead us into what they expectantly call World War IV."

Conferences

Duke organized a gathering of European Nationalists who signed the New Orleans Protocol on May 29, 2004. The signatories agreed to avoid infighting among far-right racialists.

On June 3, 2005, Duke co-chaired a conference named "Zionism As the Biggest Threat to Modern Civilization" in Ukraine, sponsored by the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management. The conference was attended by several notable Ukrainian public figures and politicians, and writer Israel Shamir.

Duke claims that Swedish police thwarted an attempted assassination against him, in August 2005, while Duke was speaking in Sweden.

On the weekend of June 8–10, 2006, Duke attended as a speaker at the international "White World's Future" conference in Moscow, which was coordinated and hosted by Pavel Tulaev. From December 11–13, he Duke attended the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust in Tehran, Iran, opened by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, stating "The Holocaust is the device used as the pillar of Zionist imperialism, Zionist aggression, Zionist terror and Zionist murder."

Duke attended the conference, along with Gazi Hussein (Syria); Dr Rahmandost (conference chair, Society for Supporting People of Palestine); Jan Bernhoff, a Swedish computer science teacher who maintains that 300,000 Jews died during the Holocaust; and Fredrick Töben, director of the Adelaide Institute, Australia.

Criticism and legal difficulties

Plastic surgery claims

In 1990 syndicated columnist Jack Anderson argued Duke has done "everything to make himself look better to the voters, including plastic surgery".

Duke explained in My Awakening that he had had reconstructive surgery on his nose, which had been broken many times.

Critical publications

In Troubled Memory: Anne Levy, the Holocaust and David Duke's Louisiana by Professor Lawrence N. Powell, who teaches at Tulane University history department and was a founding member of Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism, "connects the prewar and wartime experiences of Jewish survivors to the lives they built in the United States" and depicts"story of Anne Skorecki Levy, a Holocaust survivor who transformed the horrors of her childhood into a passionate mission to defeat the political menace of reputed neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke." The book won three awards.

Tax fraud conviction

David Duke pleaded guilty to the felony charge of filing a false tax return under and mail fraud under in December 2002.

Four months later, Duke was sentenced to 15 months in prison, and he served the time in Big Spring, Texas. He was also fined US$10,000, ordered to cooperate with the Internal Revenue Service, and to pay money still owed for his 1998 taxes. Following his release in May 2004, he stated that his decision to take the plea bargain was motivated by the bias that he perceived in the United States federal court system and not his guilt. He said he felt the charges were contrived to derail his political career and discredit him to his followers, and that he took the safe route by pleading guilty and receiving a mitigated sentence, rather than pleading not guilty and potentially receiving the full sentence.

Duke pled guilty to what prosecutors described as a six-year scheme to dupe thousands of his followers by asking for donations. Through postal mail, Duke later appealed to his supporters that he was about to lose his house and his life savings. Prosecutors claimed that Duke raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in this campaign. Prosecutors also claimed he sold his home at a hefty profit, had multiple investment accounts, and spent much of his money gambling at casinos.

The entire file of court documents related to this case can be found at The Smoking Gun website, including details on the December 12, 2002 guilty plea to federal charges that he filed a false tax return and committed mail fraud.

Don Black claims that Duke was targeted in this way by the government to discredit him.

Arrest in the Czech Republic

On April 24, 2009, it was reported that Duke, who had arrived in the Czech Republic at the invitation to deliver three lectures in Prague and Brno to promote his book My Awakening, was arrested on suspicion of "denying or approving of the Nazi genocide and other Nazi crimes" and "promotion of movements seeking suppression of human rights," which are punishable by up to three years in prison in the Czech Republic. At the time of his arrest, Duke was reportedly guarded by members of a far-right group known as "Národní Odpor" which means national resistance. The Czech police reportedly released Duke in the early hours of April 25, 2009, and ordered him to leave the country by midnight. Police accused him of promotion of movements suppressing human rights. He was released on the condition that he leaves the country by midnight on April 25, 2009.

Duke's first lecture had been scheduled at Charles University in Prague but it was canceled after university officials learned that neo-Nazis were planning to attend. Some Czech politicians including Interior Minister Ivan Langer and Human Rights and Minorities Minister Michael Kocáb, had previously expressed opposition to Duke being allowed into the country.

Election history

See Electoral history of David Duke

Possible 2012 presidential campaign

Duke has claimed that thousands of Tea Party movement activists have urged him to run for president in 2012 and he is seriously considering entering the Republican Party primaries. Duke has also released a video detailing his platform. In the video pledges that as president he would stop all immigration to the US, including legal immigration, and says that he "will not let Israel or any nation dictate our foreign policy". Duke claimed that he would be "willing to risk life and limb, endure the barbs of the media” to mount "the most honest campaign for president since the time of our Founding Fathers". However, Duke has been legally disqualified from running for public office since 2002 as part of his guilty plea for tax evasion.

Further reading

References

Works and filmography

David Duke's official web site

David Duke's account at YouTube with his videos about US and world politics

Duke, David "Jewish Supremacism " (Free Speech Pr, 2003; 350 pages) ISBN 1-892796-05-8

Duke, David "My Awakening" (Free Speech Books, 1998; 736 pages) ISBN 1-892796-00-7

European-American Unity and Rights Organization (EURO), White Civil Rights

"The truth about David Duke" by one of Duke's European Friends

"The Federal Persecution of David Duke" by Duke's childhood friend Don Black

Federal Indictment of David Duke on mail fraud and filing false tax return

"Ex-Klan Leader Is Popular in Europe, Mideast, Even as He Heads to Jail Here" Times-Picayune, New Orleans April 13, 2003 by John McQuaid

Attitudes of Mississippi college students toward David Duke before and after seeing the film 'Who Is David Duke?'

David Duke in Damascus to express solidarity with Syria Arabic News, November 22, 2005

Bridges, Tyler "The Rise of David Duke" (Mississippi University Press, 1995; 300 pages) ISBN 0-87805-678-5

Rose; Douglas D. The Emergence of David Duke and the Politics of Race University of North Carolina Press. 1992

Zatarain, Michael "David Duke: Evolution of a Klansman" (Pelican Publishing Company, 1990; Gretna, Louisiana; 304 pages) ISBN 0-88289-817-5

Interviews with Dutch white nationalist Alfred Vierling

External links

Official website

David Duke speaks in his Presidential campaign in Massachusetts 1992 on C-SPAN

David Duke withdraws his Presidential campaign, April 1992

David Duke interview on "My Awakening" on C-SPAN

Interviews

The Nationalist Report: Interview with David Duke

The Sunic Journal: Interview with David Duke

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