A US drone strike in Afghanistan has killed Osama bin Laden’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who became the leader of al-Qaeda following the killing of Osama Bin Laden in May 2011.
Confirming the report, President Joe Biden of the US in a post on Instagram described the death of al-Zawahiri, Osama Bin Laden’s deputy, as a huge blow to the Al Qaeda terr@rist network, masterminds of the September 11 2001 attacks on U.S.
“Justice has been delivered and this terr@rist leader is no more,” Biden said in a special televised address from outside the White House
Al-Zawahiri, 71, who is said to be one of the world’s most deadliest terrorist, is an Egyptian surgeon with a $25m bounty on his head for helping to mastermind the 9/11 attacks in which four civilian aircrafts were hijacked and used to crash the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York, the Pentagon near Washington and a Pennsylvania field, k#lling about 3,000 people.
According to White House officials, Al-Zawahiri was spotted on a balcony on numerous occasions after he moved into a safe house with his family in downtown Kabul, where he continued to produce al-Qaida propaganda videos for several months before he met his waterloo.
President Biden was said to have ordered the attack on the safe house at a meeting of key cabinet members and national security officials on 25 July, having ensured that every step had been taken to ensure the operation would minimize risk and casualties.
A White House official explained that though al-Zawahiri’s family members were present in the safe house during the strike, they were not targeted nor harmed.
“We have no indications that civilians were harmed in the strike. We took every possible precaution to avoid civilian harm,” the official further noted.
