U.S. forces killed al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahri in a drone strike
Saturday morning in Kabul, Afghanistan, President Joe Biden introduced
Monday night.

Probably the most wished terrorists on this planet, Zawahri oversaw the
planning of the assaults on america on Sept. 11, 2001 and
succeeded long-time associate Osama bin Laden in main the terrorist
group after bin Laden was killed in Pakistan by U.S. forces in Might 2011.

Zawahri additionally was accountable together with different leaders of al-Qaida
for organizing the assault on the usCole, a U.S. Navy destroyer, eleven
months earlier than 9/11. Seventeen members of the Navy had been killed within the
assault.

“Now, justice has been delivered and this terrorist chief isn’t any
extra,” Biden introduced throughout a speech Monday evening. “Individuals across the
world not have to worry the vicious and decided killer. The
United States continues to display our resolve and our capability to
defend the American folks in opposition to those that search to do us hurt.”

After years spent in hiding, a senior administration official stated
the U.S. realized earlier this yr that Zawahri’s spouse and youngsters had been
in Kabul, with the U.S. later studying that Zawahri was staying on the
identical secure home in Afghanistan.

American safety officers recognized Zawahri a number of occasions on the
home earlier than conducting the strike after 6 a.m. Kabul time, killing
Zawahri on the balcony of the house over the weekend, in accordance with the
official.

The official stated two hellfire missiles had been fired at Zawahri and
U.S. safety forces verified by means of “a number of streams of intelligence”
that Zawahri was killed and no civilian casualties occurred.

His household was in one other portion of the secure home on the time of the assault, in accordance with the official.

Members of the Haqqani community, a Taliban faction, had been working to
cowl up Zawahri’s presence in Afghanistan, the official stated.

Within the twenty years after 9/11, the U.S. State Division supplied a
$25 million reward for data resulting in Zawahri’s seize or
killing.

“America didn’t search this battle in opposition to terror, it got here to
us. We answered with the identical rules and resolve which have formed
us for technology upon technology — shield the harmless, defend
liberty, and we hold the sunshine of freedom burning as a beacon for the
remainder of your entire world. As a result of it is a nice and defining reality
about our nation, our folks: We don’t break. We by no means give in. We
by no means again down,” Biden stated.

The U.S. formally withdrew troops from Afghanistan
final August after a twenty-year battle sparked by 9/11. Due to the
troop withdrawal, the U.S. doesn’t have on-the-ground forces or
army personnel in Afghanistan and carried out the strike on Zawahri
through drone.

No American safety personnel had been on the bottom on the time of the assault, in accordance with the administration official.

In his speech asserting the killing of Zawahri, Biden memorialized the victims killed within the 9/11 terrorist assaults.

“We proceed to mourn each harmless life that was stolen on 9/11
and honor their reminiscences. To the households who misplaced fathers and moms,
husbands and wives, little kids, brothers and sisters, buddies
and colleagues on that searing September day, it’s my hope that this
decisive motion will deliver yet another measure of closure. No day shall
erase them from the reminiscence of time,” Biden stated.