The US President has confirmed that Ayman al-Zawahiri, the head of al-Qaeda, has been killed in an American drone strike in Afghanistan. He was targeted by the CIA in a drone strike in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.
President Joe Biden said in a brief address that Ayman al-Zawahiri was involved in the planning of the September 11 attacks and was Osama bin Laden's successor.
He said that he was involved in actions against Americans for decades.
President Biden said in his speech, "We want to make it clear that no matter how long it takes, wherever you are hiding, if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you wherever you are." And will get you out of there.
He said that the location of Ayman al-Zawahiri was found out and I allowed this operation.
He confirmed that the operation took place in Kabul, but he claimed that no civilian was killed in the operation and no member of Ayman al-Zawahiri's family was killed.
US officials say that Ayman al-Zawahiri was standing on the balcony of his home in Kabul when he was targeted by a drone attack.
Officials say that his family members were present in the same house but were unharmed in the attack
Remember that after the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011, Ayman al-Zawahiri took over the leadership of al-Qaeda.
On the other hand, the Taliban spokesman in Afghanistan has also said that the United States launched a drone attack in Sherpur, a residential area of Kabul, on Sunday.
In his tweet, Zabihullah Mujahid said that initially the nature of the incident was not known, then the investigation by the security and intelligence agencies revealed that it was a drone attack.
In his statement, he called it a "clear violation" of international norms and the Doha Agreement.
The Taliban spokesman described it as repeating the failed experiments of the past 20 years and said that such actions are against the interests of the United States, Afghanistan and the region.
Ayman al-Zawahiri was the ideological brain of al-Qaeda.
Ayman al-Zawahiri is an Egyptian doctor who was imprisoned in the 1980s for joining militant Islam. After his release, he left the country and joined violent international jihadist movements.
Eventually he settled in Afghanistan and joined the group of Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi citizen. Together, they declared war on the United States and planned the September 11, 2001 attacks
It took the US more than a decade to track down and kill bin Laden.
After him, Ayman al-Zawahiri took over the leadership of al-Qaeda, but he remained a reclusive and modest figure who only issued occasional messages.
The U.S. will herald his death as a victory, especially after pulling out of Afghanistan last year, but al-Zawahiri's influence has remained relatively modest as new groups and movements like the Islamic State have become increasingly influential.
After all, there is no doubt that a new leader will emerge in al-Qaeda after him, but he will likely have less influence than his predecessor.
Who was Ayman al-Zawahiri?
Ayman al-Zawahiri was born on June 19, 1951 in Cairo, the capital of Egypt. He belonged to a respectable family of middle-class doctors and scholars.
His grandfather, Rabia al-Zawahiri, was the imam of Al-Azhar, the center of Sunni learning in the Middle East. During this period, one of his uncles was the Secretary General of the Arab League.
Ayman al-Zawahiri got involved in religious politics from his school days. He was arrested at the age of 15 for becoming a member of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest and largest Islamic organization in Egypt.
Even while pursuing medical education in Cairo, his political activities did not stop. He graduated in 1974 and four years later earned a master's degree in surgery.
Ayman al-Zawahiri's father Muhammad was a professor of medicine. He died in 1995.
Ayman al-Zawahiri was an eye surgeon by profession and helped found the militant group Islamic Jihad in Egypt.
He was considered the deputy of former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the main planner of the al-Qaeda organization. Some experts say that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in America were carried out under their plans.
Al-Zawahiri was second only to Osama on the list of the world's most wanted persons by the United States. A price of two and a half million US dollars was put on his head.
Al-Zawahiri was killed in a US missile strike on January 13, 2006, near the border with Pakistan in Afghanistan. Four al-Qaeda members were killed in the attack, but al-Zawahiri survived.
Three weeks after the attack, he warned US President George W. Bush in a video that "neither he nor any other power on the planet can kill him."
In a message posted on his website on June 8, 2011, al-Zawahiri said that "Osama bin Laden will continue to terrorize America even after his death."
According to a statement released by Al-Qaeda's General Command after Osama bin Laden's death, Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was appointed as the new head of the organization.
Conservative youth
Al-Zawahiri first opened a medical clinic in Cairo in accordance with family tradition, but soon he was attracted to a conservative Islamic group. This group wanted the overthrow of the Egyptian government.
After the formation of Islamic Jihad in 1973, he joined it.
After the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat during a military parade in 1981, hundreds of suspected members of the organization, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, were detained.
Islamic activists were furious after President Sadat signed a peace treaty with Israel and hundreds of critics were detained in a security crackdown.
During the trial against these men, Al-Zawahiri emerged as a leader.
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Al-Zawahiri was acquitted of the murder case of President Sadat, but he was sentenced to three years in prison for possession of illegal weapons.
According to the prisoners who were with Al-Zawahiri in the prison, the authorities used to torture him. It is said that this experience caused him to develop feelings of passionate and violent extremism.
After his release in 1985, al-Zawahiri went to Saudi Arabia. Soon after that he came to Peshawar in Pakistan and from here he went to the neighboring country of Afghanistan. Here he formed a branch of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and worked as a doctor during the Soviet occupation of the country.
After the group's reunification in 1993, he became its leader. He played an important role in the attacks on many Egyptian ministers, including the Prime Minister of Egypt, Atif Siddiqui.
The group launched a campaign in the mid-1990s to overthrow the government and establish an Islamic state here. In which more than 1200 Egyptians died.
In 1999, an Egyptian military court sentenced him to death in absentia for his role in several attacks carried out by the group.
Attacks against Western targets
Al-Zawahiri is believed to have traveled the world in the 1990s in search of safe havens and financial resources. In the years following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, he is also believed to have lived in Bulgaria, Denmark and Switzerland and sometimes traveled to Balkan countries, Austria, Yemen, Iraq, Iran and the Philippines on fake passports.
In December 1996, he was arrested in Russia for allegedly traveling to Chechnya without a valid visa.
One of al-Zawahiri's writings allegedly claimed that Russian officials were unable to translate the Arabic documents on his computer and that he was able to keep his identity a secret.
It is believed that in 1997, Al-Zawahiri moved to Jalalabad, Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden was staying.
A year later, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad joined the World Islamic Front, an alliance of five other extremist groups, including Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda, to fight against the 'Jews and Crusaders'.
The first declaration of this front came in the form of a fatwa, in which the killing of American citizens was declared permissible. Six months later, 223 people were killed in simultaneous attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Al-Zawahiri was among those whose telephone conversations revealed evidence that al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were behind the attack.
Two weeks later, the United States attacked the group's training centers in Afghanistan. The next day, al-Zawahiri called a Pakistani journalist and said: 'Tell America that we will not be intimidated by its bombing, its threats, its aggression. This war has just begun
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