President Joe Biden has announced that al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Kabul
President Joe Biden speaks from the Blue Room Balcony of the White House Monday, Aug. 1, 2022, in Washington, as he announces that a U.S. airstrike killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri in Afghanistan. WASHINGTON — — President Joe Biden announced Monday that al-Qaida leaderwas killed in a U.S. drone strike in Kabul, an operation he hailed as delivering"justice" while expressing hope that it brings"one more measure of closure" to families of the victims of the Sept.
The strike was carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency, according to five people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Neither Biden nor the White House detailed the CIA's involvement in the strike. A senior administration official who briefed reporters on the operation on condition of anonymity said “zero” U.S. personnel were in Kabul.
Earlier this year, U.S. officials learned that the terror leader’s wife, daughter and her children had relocated to a safe house in Kabul, according to the senior administration official who briefed reporters.In early April, White House deputy national security adviser Jon Finer and Biden’s homeland security adviser Elizabeth D. Sherwood-Randall were briefed on this developing intelligence. Soon the intelligence was carried up to national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
On July 1, Biden was briefed in the Situation Room about the planned operation, a briefing in which the president closely examined a model of the home Zawahri was hiding out in. He gave his final approval for the operation on Thursday. Al-Zawahri was standing on the balcony of his hideout when the strike was carried out.
Zawahri, on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist list, had a $25 million bounty on his head for any information that could be used to kill or capture him. When the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan demolished al-Qaida’s safe haven and scattered, killed and captured its members, al-Zawahri ensured al-Qaida’s survival. He rebuilt its leadership in the Afghan-Pakistan border region and installed allies as lieutenants in key positions.
He tried with little success to coopt the wave of uprisings that spread across the Arab world starting in 2011, urging Islamic hard-liners to take over in the nations where leaders had fallen. But while Islamists gained prominence in many places, they have stark ideological differences with al-Qaida and reject its agenda and leadership.
Some militants whose association with bin Laden predated al-Zawahri’s always saw him as an arrogant intruder.
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