US Kills Al-Qaeda Leader Zawahiri

Published on 2/08/2022 at 00:03Reading Time: 2 minutes

LAl-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was killed in a drone strike over the weekend, was the target of a “successful counter-terrorism operation” in Afghanistan, announced by a senior US official on Monday, US media reported.

Zawahiri, believed to be the mastermind of the Sept. 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, who was killed by a US commando in Pakistan in 2011.

President Joe Biden is scheduled to speak at 7:30 p.m. (2330 GMT) in a televised speech about the “successful counterterrorism operation,” according to the White House, which did not provide further details.

A senior U.S. administration official said over the weekend the U.S. conducted a “counterterrorism operation against a key target within al-Qaeda” in Afghanistan, without mentioning Ayman al-Zawahiri. “The operation was successful and there were no casualties to civilians,” the source told reporters.

A drone strike

According to US media, Ayman al-Zawahiri may have been killed in a CIA-led drone strike in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

A reward of up to $25 million will be offered for information leading to the arrest or conviction of the al-Qaeda leader, the State Department said.

The announcement comes almost a year after the chaotic withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, which allowed the Taliban to regain control of the country after two decades. The United States also announced in mid-July that Maher al-Aqal, the leader of the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria, had been killed in a drone strike. prepare, finance and conduct its operations in the region, according to a spokesperson for the US military.