Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, and successor of Osama bin Laden, has been killed in a U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan, two decades after the 9/11 terror attacks that claimed nearly 3000 American lives.
“Justice has been delivered and this terrorist leader is no more,” President Joe Biden announced in an address from the White House.
The strike hit Zawahiri in the balcony of a safe house in Kabul at 6:18 a.m. local time Sunday.
As per an unnamed U.S. official, the house Zawahiri was living with his family, was owned by a top aide to senior Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani.
The US intelligence community had tracked Zawahiri to the safe house and spent months confirming his identity and developing a “pattern of life,” tracking his movements and behavior.
President Biden was briefed about Zawahiri’s whereabouts with the help of a constructed model of the house he lived in. U.S. officials say Zawahiri was the only person killed in the strike.
“The United States continues to demonstrate its resolve and capacity to defend Americans from those who seek to do it harm,” Biden said.
Biden made clear that “no matter how long it takes, no matter how you hide … the United States will find you and seek you out.”
Eleven years ago, President Barack Obama’s late-night announcement of the death of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad.
Zawahiri was an Egyptian surgeon who grew up in Cairo and later moved to Europe before joining bin Laden in Sudan or Afghanistan and turning into an extremist.
Zawahiri, who had been on the run for 20 years had a $25 million US bounty on his head.
Reacting to the American action in Afghanistan, which the U.S. left last year after two decades of conflict, a spokesperson of the Taliban rulers said “such actions are a repetition of the failed experiences of the past 20 years and are against the interests of the United States of America, Afghanistan, and the region. Repeating such actions will damage the available opportunities.”
The presence of Zawahiri in Kabul comes as a reminder that Afghanistan remains a place where al-Qaeda still operates. Daesh or the Islamic State is the other international terrorist organization that has had a long presence on Afghan soil.
