Ayman al-Zawahiri: what Wikipedia removed
Ayman al-Zawahiri was al-Qaeda’s second leader and one of the main orchestrators of the September 11 attacks. The 2020 opening called him plainly an Egyptian terrorist known for leading the terrorist group al-Qaeda. Today’s opening calls him an Egyptian-born pan-Islamist militant and physician, and terrorist does not appear, though terror survives 40 times elsewhere in the article. A reader today learns Wikipedia’s own word for him is militant, and not what it was in 2020: terrorist.
The word “terror” appeared 3 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2020. Today the opening carries none; the body carries 40. Checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01.
The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot
Section titled “The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot”| word | 2005 | 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | 6 October 2023 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| terror | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| militant | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| islamist | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| jihad | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
Counts are of the opening paragraph only, the part most readers, search engines and AI training sets ever quote.
What was taken out
Section titled “What was taken out”- The 2020 opening’s direct description of him as an Egyptian terrorist and leader of a terrorist group, replaced with the word militant.
How it opened then, and now
Section titled “How it opened then, and now”2005 (revision 16187623):
File:Zawahiri.jpg Ayman al-Zawahiri Ayman al-Zawahiri ( Template:Lang-ar ) (born June 19 , 1951 ) is a prominent member of the al-Qaeda group and formerly the head of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad paramilitary organization. Al-Zawahiri is a physician by trade. He speaks Arabic , French , and some English . He has used 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), and other names as aliases . In 1998 he formally merged Egyptian Islamic Jihad into al-Qaeda . According to reports by a former al-Qaida member, he has worked in the al-Qaida organization since …
2025 (revision 1297718218):
Egyptian Islamist militant and physician (1951–2022) “Al-Zawahiri” redirects here. For other uses, see Al-Zawahiri (disambiguation) . “Abu Fatima” redirects here. For the member of the Islamic State, see Abu Fatima al-Jaheishi . Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri ( Arabic : أيمن محمد ربيع الظواهري , romanized : ʾAyman Muḥammad Rabīʿ aẓ-Ẓawāhirī ; 19 June 1951 – 31 July 2022) was an Egyptian-born pan-Islamist militant and physician who served as the second general emir of al-Qaeda from June 2011 until his death in July 2022. He is best known for being one of the main orchestrators of the September 11 attacks . Al-Zawahiri graduated from Cairo University with a degree in medicine and a master’s …
Related
Section titled “Related”- The drift report: what changed across all 61,944 watched articles
- The case file for this article, with every snapshot and every marked removal
- Who made the cuts: removals grouped by the account that made them
- The live article on Wikipedia
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