{"id":97606,"date":"2022-08-02T08:59:41","date_gmt":"2022-08-02T07:59:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/?p=97606"},"modified":"2022-08-02T08:59:41","modified_gmt":"2022-08-02T07:59:41","slug":"breaking-u-s-kills-al-qaida-leader-al-zawahri-in-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/breaking-u-s-kills-al-qaida-leader-al-zawahri-in-afghanistan\/","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING: U.S. kills al-Qaida leader, Al-Zawahri, in Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"
The United States killed Al-Qaeda leader, Ayman Al-Zawahri, in a drone strike over the weekend, three people briefed on the operation told POLITICO.<\/p>\n

The strike was conducted by the CIA, according to two of the people, with one saying it took place in Kabul.<\/p>\n

Al-Zawahri was an Egyptian who took over Al-Qaeda after the U.S. killed its longtime leader, Osama bin Laden, in 2011.<\/p><\/div>\n

\nHe never achieved the household name status of his predecessor, but Al-Zawahri\u2019s killing is nonetheless a major win for the United States in the ongoing struggle against Islamist terrorism, especially as the United Nations warns that the terrorist group is outpacing its peers \u2014 like the Islamic State \u2014 as a long-term global threat.<\/p>\n

In a statement to reporters, a senior Biden administration official said \u201cover the weekend, the United States conducted a counterterrorism operation against a significant Al Qaeda target in Afghanistan. The operation was successful and there were no civilian casualties.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Joe Biden is due to give a speech about the operation later Monday. The National Security Council declined to comment.<\/p>\n

The announcement comes nearly a year after the United States finished withdrawing from Afghanistan, the country it invaded in 2001 following the Sept. 11 attacks masterminded by bin Laden. The Taliban militant group has taken over Afghanistan, and the United States has insisted that they do not allow their soil to be used by terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda.<\/p>\n

Col. Joseph Buccino, a spokesperson for U.S. Central Command, declined to comment on the specifics of the strike. \u201cWe have no operational information at this time,\u201d he said.<\/p><\/div>\n

\nA spokesperson for the Pentagon said the military has not recently conducted any strikes in the area.<\/div>\n
\nThe Senate Intelligence Committee has been briefed on the strike, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told POLITICO. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the operation \u201can important accomplishment, adding \u201cThis strike should be a message to terrorists near and far: if you conspire to kill Americans, we will find and kill you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Al-Zawahiri\u2019s presence in Kabul is likely to worsen relations between Washington and the Taliban, but it also boosts the U.S. claim that it still has what it calls \u201cover the horizon\u201d capability when it comes to intelligence on terrorist activity in Afghanistan, despite no longer having combat troops there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe strike that killed Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri is a major success of U.S. counter-terrorism efforts. A result of countless hours of intelligence collection over many years,\u201d said Mick Mulroy, a former Pentagon official and retired CIA paramilitary operations officer.<\/p>\n

Calling the killing \u201ca landmark operation,\u201d former top Obama administration official Ben Rhodes told POLITICO it \u201calso demonstrates that Biden didn\u2019t need to keep troops in Afghanistan to maintain a counterterrorism capability.\u201d<\/p>\n

A South Asian official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic, expressed shock that Al-Zawahiri was \u201croaming in Kabul.\u201d<\/p>\n

For years, terrorism researchers and others had believed that Al-Zawahiri was hiding in Pakistan \u2014 where bin Laden was found. Some observers thought Al-Zawahiri was likely somewhere in the teeming Pakistani city of Karachi.<\/p>\n

For the Biden administration, \u201cthis [strike] will deflect a bit from issues like how the Afghanistan withdrawal was a disaster and reduced U.S. capability on the counterterrorism front,\u201d the South Asian official said.<\/p>\n

Al-Zawahiri, a physician, founded Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a militant group that merged with Al-Qaeda in the late 1990s. He had been indicted for his suspected role in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.<\/p>\n

It was not immediately clear who would succeed Al-Zawahiri as the leader of the terrorist group.<\/p>\n

In December 2020, Brookings Institution terrorism expert Daniel Byman said one of the big questions of his leadership was how he would bequeath control to his successor. \u201cFor now, there is no obvious successor with al-Zawahri\u2019s broad name recognition and respect within the jihadi world,\u201d he wrote, adding: \u201cAny successor will also benefit from the decline of ISIS, which is far weaker and less inspiring now that it has lost the caliphate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesperson for the Taliban, tweeted Monday that \u201can air strike was carried out on a residential house in Sherpur area of Kabul city.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United States killed Al-Qaeda leader, Ayman Al-Zawahri, in a drone strike over the weekend, three people briefed on the operation told POLITICO. 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