Ayman al-Zawahiri

Biden announces he authorised drone strike to 'remove him from the battlefield once and for all'

Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri's death at the hands of a US drone strike brings an end to his "trail of murder and violence against American citizens," ...

"According to the United Nations, he'd released kind of an unprecedented number of videos. At one point, he narrowly escaped a US onslaught in the rugged, mountainous Tora Bora region of Afghanistan, an attack that left his wife and children dead. "So he was becoming more prominent. "People around the world no longer need to fear the vicious and determined killer. "We are working with brother bin Laden," he said in announcing the merger of his terror group in May 1998. He proudly endorsed Sadat's assassination after the Egyptian leader made peace with Israel.

DUBAI: Ayman al-Zawahiri succeeded Osama bin Laden as Al-Qaeda leader after years as its main organiser and strategist, but his lack of charisma and ...

Zawahiri was raised in Cairo’s leafy Maadi suburb, a place favoured by expatriates from the Western nations he railed against. By then he was living the spartan life of a militant after helping bin Laden to form Al-Qaeda. Zawahiri did not emerge from Cairo's slums, like others drawn to militant groups who promised a noble cause. US officials said the attack took place on Sunday in the Afghan capital Kabul. Born in 1951 to a prominent Cairo family, Zawahiri was a grandson of the grand imam of Al Azhar, one of Islam's most important mosques. Taking over the leadership of Islamic Jihad in Egypt in 1993, Zawahiri was a leading figure in a campaign in the mid-1990s to overthrow the government and set up a purist Islamic state.

A lifelong jihadist who became Osama bin Laden's right hand man and then successor, al-Zawahiri waged a long war of terror against the US and its allies.

A sudden spate of statements and communications from al-Zawahiri, suggested he was “able to lead more effectively than was possible before the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan”. But al-Zawahiri sought to co-opt the uprisings, and urged Islamic hardliners to take over in the nations where leaders had fallen. The jihad against America “does not halt with the death of a commander or leader,” he said three months after Bin Laden’s death. Yet he reshaped the organisation from a centralised planner of terror attacks into the head of a network. While Bin Laden came from a privileged background in a prominent Saudi family, al-Zawahiri had the experience of an underground revolutionary. He picked ideological fights with critics within the jihadi camp, wagging his finger scoldingly in his videos. “Bin Laden always looked up to him,” said terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman of Georgetown University. Al-Zawahiri “spent time in an Egyptian prison, he was tortured. With his thick beard, heavy-rimmed glasses and the prominent bruise on his forehead from prostration in prayer, he was notoriously prickly and pedantic. Al-Qaida’s branch in Saudi Arabia was crushed by 2006. Al-Zawahiri himself had to write to the head of al-Qaida’s branch in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, to rein in his brutal attacks on Iraqi Shia, which were hurting the network’s image among Muslims. When the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan demolished al-Qaida’s safe haven, al-Zawahiri ensured its survival. Under their leadership, the al-Qaida terror network carried out the deadliest attack ever on American soil, the September 11, 2001, suicide hijackings.

The success of the operation is a testament to the CIA's unrelenting focus on terrorism over the past 20 years.

The success of the operation is a testament to the unrelenting focus at the CIA on terrorism over the past 20 years; it never became an on-again-off-again thing. The fact that he was killed in the heart of Kabul shows that Taliban leaders are once again welcoming jihadist groups, or at least al-Qaeda, contradicting their counterterrorism pledges. So his death does not dramatically impact the leadership of al-Qaeda, which is now so widely distributed.

President Joe Biden will speak at 7:30 p.m. ET on "a successful counterterrorism operation" against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, the White House said Monday. "Over ...

After his release, he made his way to Pakistan, where he treated wounded mujahadeen fighters who fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. At one point, he narrowly escaped a US onslaught in the rugged, mountainous Tora Bora region of Afghanistan, an attack that left his wife and children dead. Zawahiri and bin Laden gloated after they escaped a US cruise missile attack in Afghanistan that had been launched in retaliation. For decades, he was the mastermind of attacks against Americans," Biden said. No American personnel were on the ground in Kabul at the time of the strike. Around the time of Kabul's fall, Biden indicated that there would be enduring US military capabilities -- namely, drones -- to target terrorists.

Ayman al-Zawahiri "carved a trail of murder and violence" against Americans, US President Joe Biden says.

But beyond the question of what this might mean, if anything, for his weak approval ratings, there's a bigger strategic one. Zawahiri took over al-Qaeda after the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011. A new al-Qaeda leader will no doubt emerge, but he will likely have even less influence than his predecessor. However, the Taliban and al-Qaeda are long-time allies and US officials said the Taliban were aware of Zawahiri's presence in Kabul. Mr Biden said he had given the final approval for the "precision strike" on the 71-year-old al-Qaeda leader after months of planning. The US has killed the leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in a drone strike in Afghanistan, President Joe Biden has confirmed.