Ayman al-Zawahiri

Al-Zawahiri was deeply involved in the planning of 9/11, and led the organization after bin Laden was killed in 2011. He died in a U.S. drone strike in ...

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Ayman al-Zawahiri "carved a trail of murder and violence" against Americans, US President Joe Biden says.

But beyond the question of what this might mean, if anything, for his weak approval ratings, there's a bigger strategic one. Zawahiri took over al-Qaeda after the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011. A new al-Qaeda leader will no doubt emerge, but he will likely have even less influence than his predecessor. However, the Taliban and al-Qaeda are long-time allies and US officials said the Taliban were aware of Zawahiri's presence in Kabul. Mr Biden said he had given the final approval for the "precision strike" on the 71-year-old al-Qaeda leader after months of planning. The US has killed the leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in a drone strike in Afghanistan, President Joe Biden has confirmed.

President Biden last year committed to the American people that, following the withdrawal of U.S. forces, the United States would continue to protect our ...

We were able to do so in this instance — and will be positioned to do so going forward — as a result of the skill and professionalism of our intelligence and counterterrorism community colleagues, for whom the President and I are deeply grateful. The world is a safer place following the death of Zawahiri, and the United States will continue to act resolutely against those who would threaten our country, our people, or our allies and partners. They also betrayed the Afghan people and their own stated desire for recognition from and normalization with the international community.

He was a seminal figure of modern jihad as al Qaeda shifted from seeking to topple authoritarian regimes in the Middle East to waging war on the West.

- Hollister:Hollister coupon up to 30% You may cancel your subscription at anytime by calling Customer Service. Instead, throughout his time in Kabul, Zawahiri continued recording video messages to the thousands of al Qaeda supporters and may have recorded videos that would be released after his death, according to senior administration officials.

The confirmation came more than an hour after the Taliban rulers in Kabul said a missile attack on Sunday against a residential compound in the Afghan capital ...

The report further concluded that al-Qaida leader al-Zawahiri, long rumored to be in ill health or dying, was "alive and communicating freely." U.S. special forces later located and killed bin Laden deep inside neighboring Pakistan in May 2011. He denounced the strike as a "blatant violation of international principles and the Doha agreement." The confirmation came more than an hour after the Taliban rulers in Kabul said a missile attack on Sunday against a residential compound in the Afghan capital was the work of an American drone. The United States conducted a rare counterterrorism operation over the weekend against a "significant" al-Qaida target in Afghanistan, a senior U.S. official said Monday. "The operation was successful and there were no civilian casualties," the official said without giving further details.

Zawahiri helped found Islamic Jihad, the group that assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. Al-Qaida was never able to regain its status as the pre ...

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The success of the operation is a testament to the CIA's unrelenting focus on terrorism over the past 20 years.

The success of the operation is a testament to the unrelenting focus at the CIA on terrorism over the past 20 years; it never became an on-again-off-again thing. The fact that he was killed in the heart of Kabul shows that Taliban leaders are once again welcoming jihadist groups, or at least al-Qaeda, contradicting their counterterrorism pledges. So his death does not dramatically impact the leadership of al-Qaeda, which is now so widely distributed.

President Biden said the death of Zawahiri, who succeeded Osama bin Laden, means Afghanistan can no longer “become a terrorist safe haven.”

He remained as a figurehead but failed to prevent the splintering of the Islamist movement in Syria and other conflict zones after 2011. Al-Qaeda hasn’t carried out any major terrorist attacks in the United States or Europe in recent years, following bombings that killed 52 people in London in 2005. Some attackers were inspired by al-Qaeda, such as a Saudi military trainee who killed three American sailors at a U.S. base in Florida in December 2019. A United Nations report in July estimated there were up to 400 al-Qaeda fighters remaining in Afghanistan. Security experts say the operation demonstrates that the United States is still able to carry out precision strikes in Afghanistan after last year’s withdrawal of troops on the ground. Today, though, the group is splintered, with branches and affiliates spanning the globe from West Africa to India. The question remains whether those groups will focus on local conflicts or coalesce for more global ambitions. Zawahiri merged his own Egyptian militant group with al-Qaeda in the 1990s. The strike is the latest in a string of successful U.S. operations against al-Qaeda and Islamic State leaders. Analysts say that in the past, al-Qaeda has adjusted to the loss of leaders, with new figures emerging in their place. In his later years, Zawahiri largely shied from public view, presiding over al-Qaeda at a time of decline, with most of the group’s founding figures dead or in hiding. When the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in 1996, it gave al-Qaeda the sanctuary that enabled it to run training camps and plot attacks, including 9/11. President Biden said in an address to the nation Monday that Zawahiri’s death — after he evaded capture for decades — sent a clear message: “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.”