The US has killed the head of the extremist network al-Qaeda in the Afghan capital Kabul with a drone attack. Aiman al-Zawahiri was killed in a drone attack over the weekend, US President Joe Biden said in a speech from a balcony of the White House in Washington.
As Osama bin Laden’s deputy, Zawahiri was deeply involved in planning the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that killed thousands, Biden said. He also played a key role in the 1998 attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that left hundreds dead and thousands injured. After the US killed bin Laden in 2011, Zawahiri rose to the forefront of the terrorist organization.
His whereabouts were long unknown. At the beginning of the year, however, there were indications that he had taken up residence in a house in a central area of Kabul, Biden said. Initially, relatives of Zawahiri were sighted there, according to US officials. The findings about the presence of the terrorist leader were then substantiated by months of surveillance by US secret services.
The President was shown a model of the building in the White House situation room. Biden coordinated with his closest security advisers in May and June to anticipate the regional implications of an attack, including the possibility of rescuing more Afghans and US citizens from the radical Islamic Taliban-ruled country. Biden approved the operation on July 25.
At 6:18 a.m. Kabul time on July 31, Zawahiri was then killed by a drone attack with two Hellfire missiles. The al-Qaeda boss was identified on the balcony on the second floor of the house and was also hit there. Other people were therefore not killed, neither uninvolved civilians nor the wife and four children of Zawahiri, who would also have been in the house at times. The house is now empty and Zawahiri’s family members have been taken to another location by Islamists.
Biden: Anti-terrorist operations possible even after withdrawal from Afghanistan
Now, more than two decades after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Biden sent a clear message to terrorists around the world: “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.” Of Zawahiri, Biden said, “Justice has been delivered. And that terrorist leader is no more.”
The drone strike is the first known US attack in Afghanistan since troops and diplomats left the country last year. Biden said that when he pulled out of Afghanistan, he promised that the United States would remain capable of conducting counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere: “That’s exactly what we just did.” A government source said the president had made good on his promise that Afghanistan would not become a safe haven for terrorists even after the Taliban took power. Biden saw Zawahiri’s death as proof that it was possible to protect America from terrorists without thousands of soldiers on Afghan soil.
The Taliban knew where Zawahiri lived
The Zawahiri case could fuel new tensions between the US and the Taliban, who came to power in Afghanistan after international troops withdrew last year. You had actually announced that the country would not be a safe haven for terrorists. However, according to the government source, senior members of the Haqqani network within the Taliban knew of Zawahiri’s whereabouts. You would have clearly violated agreements with the United States. After the attack, the Taliban tried to cover up who the person killed was.
In an agreement with the United States, in return for the withdrawal of international troops, the Taliban had pledged, among other things, that Afghanistan would no longer pose a terrorist threat from other groups such as al-Qaeda. The Taliban confirmed the drone attack on the apartment building in Kabul, but condemned the action and viewed it as a breach of the agreement – even if there were no soldiers on Afghan soil.
Zawahiri made his last public appearance last September – exactly 20 years after the September 11 terrorist attacks. In a video message he called on his followers to fight the states in the West and their allies in the Middle East. In previous years, there had been unconfirmed rumors of his death. His exact whereabouts were unknown, and there was also speculation about his state of health. Media reported in 2019, citing intelligence information, that Zawahiri was suffering from heart problems.
Zawahiri later this year produced instructional videos for branches of the terror network and has taken an active leadership role, the US government source reports. At the same time, he was one of the last figures from the founding generation of al-Qaeda who had acquired such authority. Zawahiri continued to call for attacks on the United States. According to the government, he was a legitimate target for such an attack. A government official said: “His death is a serious blow to al-Qaeda and will hamper the group’s ability to function.”
For years at Bin Laden’s side, then his successor
In the al-Qaeda power structure, Zawahiri stood right behind leader Osama bin Laden for many years. Egyptian Zawahiri and Bin Laden, who was born in Saudi Arabia, shared a fanatical hatred of America, Israel and the power structures in their respective home countries. After US special forces killed bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011, Zawahiri took over.
He shaped al-Qaeda and jihadism ideologically. However, he lacked the charisma bin Laden exuded as a leader. He never managed to achieve the iconic status of his predecessor in the terror network. The US had offered $25 million for information leading to his capture.
Aiman al-Zawahiri was considered the ideological mastermind of jihadism (archive photo from 2012).
(Photo: -/AFP)
Born in 1951, Zawahiri grew up in a wealthy suburb of the Egyptian capital Cairo. He had well-known ancestors in his home country: his maternal grandfather was president of Cairo University, his paternal great-uncle rector of Al-Azhar University, the most prestigious educational institution in the Islamic world.
During his training as a surgeon, Zawahiri made contact with radical Muslim groups. With the aim of founding an Islamic state in Egypt, he joined the new terrorist group Egyptian Islamic Jihad in the 1970s, which assassinated President Anwar Sadat in 1981. Zawahiri was arrested along with 300 other suspects and was imprisoned for three years until he left for Pakistan via Saudi Arabia in 1985.