Nasir al-Wuhayshi, the Al-Qaeda second-in-command who has been killed in a US drone strike, was a former aide of Osama bin Laden who tunnelled out of prison to take command of its Yemen arm.
Under his leadership, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) became the jihadist network's most feared branch, plotting a string of attacks on Western targets that earned him a US bounty of $10 million on his head.
The group claimed a January attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo which killed 12 people and was behind an attempt to blow up a US commercial airliner on Christmas Day 2009.
Wuhayshi, a thin, olive-skinned Yemeni believed to have been in his mid-thirties, attended Al-Qaeda's Al-Farouk training camp in Afghanistan in the late 1990s.
He grew close to Bin Laden, handling his finances and guesthouses, wrote Seth G. Jones in his book "Hunting in the Shadows, the pursuit of Al-Qaeda since 9/11".
"Both were soft spoken thinkers, silently ambitious men who saw further than those around them," wrote Gregory Johnsen in his book "The Last Refuge: Yemen, Al-Qaeda and the Battle for Arabia."
Wuhayshi is said to have fled Afghanistan in 2002 to Iran, where he was arrested and handed over to Yemen, which detained him without charge.
But in February 2006, he made an audacious escape with 22 other prisoners in a major embarrassment for the Yemeni authorities who had been regarded as a key US ally in the fight against the jihadist network.
The detainees escaped through a 44-metre (145-foot) tunnel between their cell and a nearby mosque which they dug with makeshift tools.
The jailbreak was a boost for Al-Qaeda in Yemen after a series of blows, including the killing of its then leader Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harithi in a US drone strike in 2002.
Harithi was the suspected mastermind of the 2000 bombing of the destroyer USS Cole in the port of Aden that killed 17 sailors.
Wuhayshi was named head of Al-Qaeda in Yemen in 2007 and oversaw its merger with the network's Saudi branch to form AQAP.
Saudi jihadists fleeing the kingdom's crackdown on Al-Qaeda after a spate of deadly attacks in 2006 and 2007 were welcomed by Wuhayshi.
Saeed al-Shehri, a Saudi former inmate of the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was named his deputy, a post he held until his death in a US drone strike in 2013.
Yemen's rugged terrain and fiercely independent tribal society proved fertile ground for AQAP, which established a strong presence in swathes of the south and east.
When Bin Laden was killed by US commandos in Pakistan in May 2010, Wuhayshi warned Washington not to fool itself that it spelt Qaeda's demise.
"What is coming is greater and worse, and what is awaiting you is more intense and harmful," he said.
In July 2011, Wuhayshi pledged allegiance to Bin Laden's successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Nasir al-Wuhayshi, the Al-Qaeda second-in-command who has been killed in a US drone strike, was a former aide of Osama bin Laden who tunnelled out of prison to take command of its Yemen arm.
Under his leadership, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) became the jihadist network’s most feared branch, plotting a string of attacks on Western targets that earned him a US bounty of $10 million on his head.
The group claimed a January attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo which killed 12 people and was behind an attempt to blow up a US commercial airliner on Christmas Day 2009.
Wuhayshi, a thin, olive-skinned Yemeni believed to have been in his mid-thirties, attended Al-Qaeda’s Al-Farouk training camp in Afghanistan in the late 1990s.
He grew close to Bin Laden, handling his finances and guesthouses, wrote Seth G. Jones in his book “Hunting in the Shadows, the pursuit of Al-Qaeda since 9/11”.
“Both were soft spoken thinkers, silently ambitious men who saw further than those around them,” wrote Gregory Johnsen in his book “The Last Refuge: Yemen, Al-Qaeda and the Battle for Arabia.”
Wuhayshi is said to have fled Afghanistan in 2002 to Iran, where he was arrested and handed over to Yemen, which detained him without charge.
But in February 2006, he made an audacious escape with 22 other prisoners in a major embarrassment for the Yemeni authorities who had been regarded as a key US ally in the fight against the jihadist network.
The detainees escaped through a 44-metre (145-foot) tunnel between their cell and a nearby mosque which they dug with makeshift tools.
The jailbreak was a boost for Al-Qaeda in Yemen after a series of blows, including the killing of its then leader Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harithi in a US drone strike in 2002.
Harithi was the suspected mastermind of the 2000 bombing of the destroyer USS Cole in the port of Aden that killed 17 sailors.
Wuhayshi was named head of Al-Qaeda in Yemen in 2007 and oversaw its merger with the network’s Saudi branch to form AQAP.
Saudi jihadists fleeing the kingdom’s crackdown on Al-Qaeda after a spate of deadly attacks in 2006 and 2007 were welcomed by Wuhayshi.
Saeed al-Shehri, a Saudi former inmate of the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was named his deputy, a post he held until his death in a US drone strike in 2013.
Yemen’s rugged terrain and fiercely independent tribal society proved fertile ground for AQAP, which established a strong presence in swathes of the south and east.
When Bin Laden was killed by US commandos in Pakistan in May 2010, Wuhayshi warned Washington not to fool itself that it spelt Qaeda’s demise.
“What is coming is greater and worse, and what is awaiting you is more intense and harmful,” he said.
In July 2011, Wuhayshi pledged allegiance to Bin Laden’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
