US President Joe Biden has confirmed that Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has been killed in a US drone strike. The veteran Jihadi was killed in a counter-terrorism operation carried out by the CIA in the Afghan capital of Kabul on Sunday.
Mr Biden said Zawahiri had “carved a trail of murder and violence against American citizens”. “Now justice has been delivered and this terrorist leader is no more,” he added.
According to the BBC, Zawahiri took over Al-Qaeda after the death of Osama Bin Laden in 2011. He and Bin Laden plotted the 9/11 attacks together and he was one of the US’s “most wanted terrorists”. Officials said Zawahiri was on the balcony of a safe house when the drone fired two missiles at him. Other family members were present, but they were unharmed and only Zawahiri was killed in the attack, they added.
I made a promise to the American people that we’d continue to conduct effective counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan and beyond.
We have done that. pic.twitter.com/441YZJARMX
— President Biden (@POTUS) August 2, 2022
The final go-ahead for the “precision strike” on the 71-year-old Al-Qaeda leader was given by Biden, after months of meticulous planning. His killing will bring closure to families of the nearly 3,000 victims of the 2001 attacks, Biden added.
“No matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide, if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out,” said Biden. He added that “we shall never waver from defending our nation and its people”.
Zawahiri had also masterminded other acts of violence, including the suicide bombing of the USS Cole naval destroyer in Aden in October 2000 which killed 17 US sailors, and the 1998 attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, in which 223 people died, said Biden.
The US President insisted that Afghanistan would never again be a safe haven for terrorists.
The BBC reported that a Taliban spokesman describing the US operation as a clear violation of international principles. The spokesman, however, but did not mention Zawahiri.
“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,” the spokesman added.
