Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al Qaeda, was killed by a drone strike, according to President Joe Biden, who spoke from the White House on Monday.
“I authorized a precision strike that would remove him from the battlefield, once and for all,” Biden said.
11 years after the US killed Osama bin Laden, Zawahiri, who recently turned 71, had continued to be a prominent international symbol of the organization. He served as bin Laden’s personal physician at one point.
Zawahiri was killed in what a senior administration official described as “a precise tailored airstrike” using two Hellfire missiles while seeking refuge in central Kabul to reunite with his family, according to Biden. According to the office on Monday, Biden authorized the drone strike, which was carried out at 9:48 p.m. ET on Saturday, after several meetings with his cabinet and important advisers. No American personnel were present in Kabul at the time of the strike.
In a series of tweets, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said, “An air strike was carried out on a residential house in Sherpur area of Kabul city on July 31.”
He said, “The nature of the incident was not apparent at first” but the security and intelligence services of the Islamic Emirate investigated the incident, and “initial findings determined that the strike was carried out by an American drone.”
