Americans kill Al Qaeda boss Zawahiri in drone strike on Kabul house

The United States has announced that it killed a key plotter of the 11 September terrorist attacks of 2001, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who went on to become leader of Al Qaeda after Osama bin Laden’s death.

The assassination was carried out in an early-morning strike in the heart of downtown Kabul, Afghanistan, at an urban safe house, President Joe Biden announced on Monday night.

The Egyptian radical had been wanted by the US for 21 years, after carrying out the deadliest foreign attack on the United States in modern times.

“Now justice has been delivered and this terrorist leader is no more,” Biden said in a seven-minute televised address from the White House. “We make it clear again tonight,” he added, “that no matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide, if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out.”

American intelligence tracked down al-Zawahiri in Kabul earlier this year and then spent months determining that it really was him, hiding out in a house in a crowded section of the Afghan capital.

The CIA fired two Hellfire missiles and killed al-Zawahiri on a balcony of the house without killing anyone else, including members of his family or any nearby civilians, American officials said.

It was the first strike in Afghanistan since the withdrawal of American forces.

The C.I.A. missiles hit a house in Kabul’s Sherpur area, a wealthy downtown enclave within what is considered the city’s diplomatic quarters, which once housed dozens of Western embassies and now is home to some high-ranking Taliban officials. The strike took place at 6:18 a.m. on Sunday in Kabul time, officials said.

After the strike, members of the Haqqani network, a terrorist group that is part of the Taliban government, tried to conceal that Zawahiri had been at the house and restrict access to the site.

The Americans said al-Zawahiri’s presence, having found shelter in Afghanistan even though the Taliban had committed not to provide a safe haven for Al Qaeda to launch further attacks against Americans, was “a clear violation” of the agreement first struck by President Donald Trump and accepted by Biden.

The Taliban have repeatedly said they are adhering to the Doha agreement and not allowing Afghanistan to become a base for attacks on other countries. But analysts and experts have warned that terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or the Pakistani Taliban, have found refuge in the country since the takeover.

Al-Zawahiri, 71, an Egyptian-born Islamist, was convicted of conspiracy in the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat. He later merged his organisation, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, with Bin Laden’s to expand its reach.

A statement from the Taliban condemned the operation. “It is an act against the interests of Afghanistan and the region,” the statement said. “Repeating such actions will damage the available opportunities.”

This spring, a U.N. report warned that Al Qaeda had found “increased freedom of action” in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power. The report noted that a number of Qaeda leaders were possibly living in Kabul and that the uptick in public statements by al-Zawahiri suggested that he was able to lead more effectively after the Taliban seized power.