The Al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed on Sunday 31st July 2022 in a CIA drone strike in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul, United States President Joe Biden has so far confirmed.
According to US President Joe Biden, ‘justice has been delivered’ after Al-Qaeda leader was located and killed in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Al-Zawahiri was killed on Sunday in the biggest blow to the group since its founder Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011. He and Osama Bin Laden plotted the 9/11 attacks together, and he was one of America’s most wanted terrorists.
President Biden noted that al Zawahiri had carved a trail of heinous acts of murder and meted immeasurable violence against Americans citizens and against American allies.
In a televised address outside the White House, President Biden noted that “Justice has been delivered and this Al-Qaeda terrorist leader is no more”
US Intelligence assets had located al-Zawahiri’s family in Kabul earlier this year. No members of al Zawahiri’s family or civilians had been killed in the drone attack.
An Egyptian surgeon with a $25m reward on his head, al-Zawahiri helped coordinate the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Reports further indicate that the CIA carried out a drone attack in Kabul using two missiles. Al-Zawahiri was on his balcony at the time on the building owned by Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s de facto deputy leader.
Security analysts have continued to point on the budding relations between Al-Qaeda and the Taliban since US exited Afghanistan.
The Taliban through its chief spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed the attack in Kabul, and condemned it as a “violation of international principles”. He reiterated that the strike was carried out on a residential house in the Sherpur area of Kabul, a diplomatic enclave where many Taliban leaders live now.
With confirmation that Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Al-Qaeda leader is dead, we await who will assume his position as the leader of the terrorist group with several affiliates. However, Last month’s UN report provided insight on Al-Qaeda’s possible line of succession. Saif al Adel, the longtime Al-Qaeda leader and veteran, is second behind Zawahiri. Next in line are Abdal-Rahman al-Maghrebi a native Moroccan who is Zawahiri’s son-in-law, a top Al-Qaeda leader, Yazid Mebrak, the emir of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and Ahmed Diriye, the leader of Al-Shabaab, which is Al-Qaeda’s branch in East Africa.
