Report: US operation killed al-Qaida leader al-Zawahri, Biden to address nation
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Monday confirmed that a U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan this weekend killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri, declaring “justice has been delivered.”
Al-Zawahri’s loss eliminates the figure who, more than anyone, shaped al-Qaida, first as Osama bin Laden’s deputy since 1998, then as his successor. He and bin Laden turned the jihadi movement’s guns to target the United States, carrying out the deadliest attack ever on American soil — the Sept. 11, 2001, suicide hijackings.
Over the 20-year war in Afghanistan, the U.S. targeted and splintered al-Qaida, sending leaders into hiding. But America’s exit from Afghanistan last September gave the extremist group the opportunity to rebuild. U.S. military officials, including Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have said that al-Qaida was trying to reconstitute in Afghanistan, where it faced limited threats from the now-ruling Taliban.
Biden planned to speak from the balcony off the White House Blue Room as he remains in isolation in the residence while he continues to test positive for COVID-19. When the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan demolished al-Qaida’s safe haven and scattered, killed and captured its members, al-Zawahri ensured al-Qaida’s survival. He rebuilt its leadership in the Afghan-Pakistan border region and installed allies as lieutenants in key positions.
He tried with little success to coopt the wave of uprisings that spread across the Arab world starting in 2011, urging Islamic hard-liners to take over in the nations where leaders had fallen. But while Islamists gained prominence in many places, they have stark ideological differences with al-Qaida and reject its agenda and leadership.
Some militants whose association with bin Laden predated al-Zawahri’s always saw him as an arrogant intruder.
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