Al-Qaeda chief killed: Know how the operation was held
2 August, 2022 | Pranay Lad
The militant group received its biggest blow after its founder Osama Bin Laden was killed in 2011. Zawahiri was in hiding for years, until he was identified in a safe house in Kabul.
US President Joe Biden announced on Monday (local time) that Al-Qaeda Chief Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a drone strike by the US.
The militant group received its biggest blow after its founder Osama Bin Laden was killed in 2011. Zawahiri was in hiding for years, until he was identified in a safe house in Kabul.
For years, the US was following a network that supported the Al-Qaeda Chief. Over the past year, officials were closely scrutinising the slight indications of Zawahiri’s presence following the withdrawal of the US from Afghanistan.
On July 1st, CIA director William Burns with other officials proposed an operation to exterminate the Al-Qaeda Chief with no casualties, and they very closely scrutinized the nature and elevation of the safe house which was home to his wife, her daughter, and her children. The operation had to be viewed from a political aspect as well, as US president Joe Biden was concerned about how the operation will affect the US-Taliban dynamics.
Following the success of the operation, the US President took to his Twitter account to announce the success of taking down the 71-year-old Zawahiri. The tweet reads – “I made a promise to the American people that we’d continue to conduct effective counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan and beyond. We have done that.”
Countries like Saudi Arabia welcomed the announcement of the killing of the Al-Qaeda Chief. The state-owned agency of Saudi Arabia reported a foreign ministry statement, “Zawahiri is considered one of the leaders of terrorism that led the planning and execution of heinous terrorist operations in the United States and Saudi Arabia,” It said.
A whopping USD 25 million in reward was held from the US State Department for information.