Al Qaeda Chief Ayman al-Zawahiri has been killed by the United States in a drone strike at a house in Sherpur area of Afghanistan‘s capital Kabul, President Joe Biden has confirmed.
The US President Biden has called the attack as justice and hailed the CIA operation in Kabul.
“Now justice has been delivered and this terrorist leader is no more," he said.
“No civilians were killed, we would not allow Afghanistan to become a terrorist safe haven again,” Biden added.
The operational strike was carried out by the CIA (Central Investigation Agency) which is the US security intelligence agency, responsible for collecting and analyzing foreign intelligence and conduct covert action. When CIA provides information to the U.S. policymakers, including the President of the United States, only then the authorities make policy decisions in the US.
As per media reports, al-Zawahiri was killed in a strike when he was on the balcony of a house in Kabul and targeted with two Hellfire missiles, an hour after sunrise.
However, the Taliban government has condemned the drone strike as a “violation of international principles” and a violation of the Doha Agreement.
Taliban chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the hit was carried out on a residential house where many Taliban leaders reside.
Taliban didn’t not named Al Zawhiri during strike confirmation.
On the latter, the US has accused Taliban of “grossly” violating the Doha Agreement by sheltering al-Zawahiri as per the Doha agreement between the US and Taliban peace talks held in Qatar capital, Doha.
Born in 1951 at Egypt’s capital Cairo into a middle-class family of doctors and scholars, the Al Qaeda leader Al Zawhiri was arrested at the age of 15 for being a member of the then-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest Islamist groups.
He was a surgeon by profession and began his life as an underground Islamist, leaving Egypt for Pakistan in 1985 where he worked as a doctor treating fighters wounded in battles against Soviet forces occupying neighbouring Afghanistan.
In 1993, he took over the leadership of Jihad, Egypt’s second largest Islamic armed group. Six years later, a military court in Egypt sentenced al-Zawahiri to death in absentia in 1999 for extremist activities.
He joined Osama bin Laden in 1998, and charged for bombings US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
From 2003, he began broadcasting his audiotapes urging Muslims to boycott the US, United Kingdom, Australia, Norway. He also called some Middle East states as the puppets of America and Israel.
In December 2001, al-Zawahiri’s wife and several children were reported to have been killed by US bombing in Afghanistan.
He took oath as the head of Al Qaeda after the US killing of the then al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011.
Before his death he had a $25m US reward on his head and labelled as one of the masterminds behind the September 11, 2001 attacks.