Jubilee Post News & Views
Special Desk
Leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was killed by the US in a drone strike in Afghanistan.
US President Joe Biden confirmed this sand said, “He (Zawahiri) played a key role in bombing on the US soil.”
He was killed in a counter-terrorism operation carried out by the CIA in the Afghan capital of Kabul on Sunday. 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”.
“He carved a trail of murder and violence against American citizens,” said Biden in an address while listing out attacks on Americans by the wanted. “Now justice has been delivered and this terrorist leader is no more,” he added.
American intelligence agencies tracked down al-Zawahri in Kabul earlier this year and then spent months determining that it really was him. He was reportedly hiding in a house in a crowded section of the Afghan capital.
According to the sources 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 claimed.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, was referred to as the chief ideologue of al-Qaeda. An eye surgeon who helped found the Egyptian Islamic Jihad militant group, took over the leadership of al-Qaeda following the killing by US forces of Osama Bin Laden in May 2011. Before that, Zawahiri was considered Bin Laden’s right-hand man.
Biden said he had given the final approval for the “precision strike” on the 71-year-old al-Qaeda leader after months of planning. His killing will bring closure to families of the nearly 3,000 victims of the 2001 attacks, Biden said.
