A United States airstrike killed al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahri in Kabul, authorities sources revealed Monday.
Al-Zawahri was one of many al-Qaeda leaders behind the 9/11 terrorist assaults and a detailed confidant of Osama Bin Laden, who was killed by U.S. particular forces in 2011.
President Joe Biden is anticipated to deal with the matter at 7:30 p.m. ET tonight. A senior administration official addressing a pool of reporters stated that “over the weekend, america carried out a counterterrorism operation in opposition to a big Al Qaeda goal in Afghanistan. The operation was profitable and there have been no civilian casualties.” A supply tells Politico that the operation was carried out below the course of the Central Intelligence Company.
Over the weekend, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed {that a} U.S. drone strike had taken place within the capital of Kabul, saying the group “strongly condemn[ed]” the assault and known as it “a transparent violation of worldwide ideas and the Doha Settlement.”
If confirmed, the strike would mark the loss of life of one of many final remaining al-Qaeda management figures from the 9/11 period and lift questions on its future management. Zawahiri has presided over the terrorist group because the U.S. killed Osama Bin Laden in 2011. Many analysts anticipated that Hamza Bin Laden, one of many terror chief’s sons, would take over the management of al-Qaeda, however the U.S. claimed to have killed him in a 2019 strike, successfully ending the Bin Laden legacy of al-Qaeda management.
The strike marks a considerably uncommon return to operations in Afghanistan for U.S. forces, which left the nation in a chaotic exit in August 2021. On the time, President Biden pledged in a speech that his administration would “preserve the combat in opposition to terrorism in Afghanistan” regardless of the withdrawal. U.S. counterterrorism coverage in Afghanistan, Biden stated, can be carried out with so-called “over-the-horizon capabilities” that “can strike terrorists and targets with out American boots on the bottom.”
Zawahiri rose to prominence in al-Qaeda after he fled Egypt for Afghanistan, having been imprisoned for his affiliation with jihadists concerned with the assassination of Anwar al Sadat.. In Afghanistan, he met Osama Bin Laden and, in line with contemporaries, was influential in Bin Laden’s views within the early days of al-Qaeda and helped push the Saudi terror leaders in direction of a technique that included concentrating on the U.S., quite than simply Center Jap governments. Zawahiri’s personal terror group, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, merged with al-Qaeda in 2001, weeks earlier than the 9/11 terrorist assaults, cementing his function as al-Qaeda’s deputy chief.
Within the years because the U.S. killing of Bin Laden, Zawahiri appeared to pin the group’s fortunes on the civil battle in Syria, the place an al-Qaeda franchise named Jabhat al-Nusra gained power. However native jihadists ultimately broke with the al-Qaeda model in an obvious try to scale back American concern and strain on its operations. The Islamic State, an offshoot of al-Qaeda’s Iraq franchise, ultimately displaced each al-Qaeda and Zawahiri because the leaders of world jihadism, leaving the Egyptian physician with a sparse bench of leaders and associates relative to al-Qaeda’s early post-9/11 years.
