/ Source: Reuters
This timeline features some of the major statements attributed to Ayman al-Zawahri in the past two years.
- June 2, 2009 — Al-Zawahri urges Egyptians to reject a visit by President Barack Obama to Egypt during which he plans to deliver a message to Muslims. He described Obama as a "criminal" and said his "messages to Muslims had already been received (through) ... a bloody campaign against Muslims in Swat" in Pakistan.
- September 22 — Al-Zawahri and other al-Qaida leaders appear in a 106-minute Arabic language video marking the September 11, 2001 attacks. They speak of events over the past year including the global financial crisis and Obama's election.
- July 19, 2010 — Al-Zawahri mocks Obama for voicing confidence over victory in Afghanistan, in an Internet message. Al-Zawahri also says Arab government leaders allied to the West were more harmful to the Palestinians than Israel.
- July 27 — In an audio recording, al-Zawahri condemns a French move to ban Islamic face veils and urges Yemeni clerics to call for jihad against an alleged U.S. intervention in Yemen.
- September 15 — Al-Zawahri releases an audio recording accusing Pakistan of responding too slowly to severe flooding in the country and calling on Pakistanis to revolt. Entitled "A Victorious Ummah, A Broken Crusade: Nine Years After the Start of the Crusader Campaign," the recording was posted on an Islamist websites often used by al-Qaida.
- November 4 — In a recording posted on the Internet, al-Zawahri calls for retaliation against the U.S. for sentencing a female Pakistani neuroscientist to life in prison for shooting at FBI agents and soldiers. Aafia Siddiqui was arrested in Afghanistan in 2008 by Afghan police who said she was carrying 2 pounds of sodium cyanide and crumpled notes referring to mass-casualty attacks and New York landmarks.
- February 18, 2011 — Al-Zawahri condemns Egypt's regime under toppled leader Hosni Mubarak as corrupt, and praises an Islamic state as an appropriate alternative, in an audio recording posted on the Internet.
- April 15 — Al-Zawahri says Muslims should fight NATO in Libya in an audio message monitored by the SITE Intelligence Group. "I want to direct the attention of our Muslim brothers in Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and the rest of the Muslim countries, that if the Americans and the NATO forces enter Libya then their neighbors in Egypt and Tunisia and Algeria and the rest of the Muslim countries should rise up and fight both the mercenaries of Gadhafi and the rest of NATO," al-Zawahri said.
- May 2 — Bin Laden is killed in Pakistan by U.S. forces after a ten-year hunt.
- June 8 — Al-Zawahri mourns bin Laden in a 28-minute message on YouTube. He also praises revolts in several Arab countries and calls on Pakistanis to rise against what he called their corrupt rulers "just as your brothers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria have done."