He was considered the mastermind of the September 11 attacks. The leader of Al-Qaeda Ayman Al-Zawahiri was killed in Afghanistan, Joe Biden confirmed Monday evening in a televised address. “On Saturday, on my orders, the United States carried out an airstrike on Kabul that killed the emir of Al-Qaeda, Ayman Al-Zawahiri,” Joe Biden announced from the White House, adding: ” Justice has been served and this terrorist leader is no more. »
According to Biden, US intelligence located Al-Zawahiri “earlier this year”. He had joined his family in central Kabul. Joe Biden authorized a “surgical strike” a week ago and updated Congress. The leader of Al-Qaeda was eliminated without civilian loss, said the commander-in-chief of the United States.
Bladed Secret Missile
Dawn has just broken over Kabul on Sunday morning. It’s 6:18 a.m. Al-Zawahiri is on his balcony. An American drone flies over the Afghan capital and fires two Hellfire missiles. The leader of Al-Qaida is killed. Around the house where his wife, daughter and grandchildren live, the traces of a strike are minimal, no explosion seems to have occurred, no other victims are known.
These multiple elements suggest the use, by the United States, of a weapon whose very existence has never been confirmed: the Hellfire R9X “flying ginsu” missiles, named after an American brand of knives inspired by the Japan. This modified version of the American missile would be devoid of explosive charge but equipped with six blades which deploy before impact to cut its target without blast effect. A photo of a suspected target’s car in Syria in 2017 shows a huge hole in the roof of the vehicle, the interior shredded, but the front and rear intact.
$25 million reward
Zawahiri, considered the architect of the September 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States, took over as head of the terrorist organization after the death of Osama Bin Laden in 2011. The State Department offered up to $25 million in rewards for information leading to his arrest or conviction.
This announcement comes nearly a year after the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan American forces, which had enabled the Taliban to regain control of the country twenty years later. The United States had also announced in mid-July that it had killed the leader of the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria, Maher Al-Agal, during a drone strike, an operation which had “considerably weakened the capacity of the ‘ISIS to prepare, finance and conduct its operations in the region,’ according to a US military spokesman.