Biden: US Kills Al Qaeda Leader Ayman Al Zawahiri

The United States has killed the leader of Al Qaeda, President Joe Biden confirmed on Monday.

“On Saturday, at my direction, the United States successfully concluded an airstrike in Kabul Afghanistan that killed the Emir of al Qaeda, Ayman al Zawahiri,” Biden said in an address at the White House.

American forces conducted the precision drone strike on the Al Qaeda leader in Kabul, Afghanistan, Biden said, after the U.S. intelligence community located Zawahiri earlier this year. Biden said the strike did not lead to civilian casualties.

The spokesperson for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid, wrote on Twitter on Monday that “an air strike was carried out on a residential house in Sherpur area of Kabul city” the past Sunday. Mujahid said the attack was conducted by American drones.

Al Zawahiri succeeded Osama bin Laden as the leader in June 2011, when bin Laden was killed by the U.S. military.

The FBI listed Al Zawahiri as a “most wanted terrorist,” for the murder of U.S. nationals outside the United States.

Biden called Zawahiri the “number two” at the time of the 911 terrorist attack and “the mastermind” behind attacks against Americans “for decades.”

Zawahiri was also indicted for his alleged role in the Aug. 7, 1998, bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, according to an FBI wanted notice. Biden said the embassy attack killed 224 people and wounded 4,500 others. Zawahiri is also believed to have plotted the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 in which 17 U.S. sailors were killed.

A U.N. Security Council report dated 2021 said Zawahiri was “ailing” in Afghanistan then and that Sayf-Al Adl was to be Zawahiri’s “most likely successor” who then resided in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The strike came a year after the Biden administration