WASHINGTON — Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri, who took over command of the terrorist organization after the death of Osama Bin Laden in 2011, was killed by a U.S. drone strike in the Afghan capital of Kabul on Saturday night, President Joe Biden said in a White House address on Monday evening.
“He carved a trail of murder and violence against American citizens, American service members, American diplomats, and American interests,” Biden said, describing the Egyptian-born Muslim fundamentalist, who was a surgeon by training, as a “vicious and determined killer” who had been intimately involved in planning the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Intelligence “continued to strengthen on a daily basis,” the senior administration official said. Biden was finally briefed on July 25, while he was in the midst of his COVID-19 isolation. Taking the counsel of his top national security advisers, he approved the strike. Although its operational capacity had been degraded in the last decade, al-Qaida remained a potent symbol of anti-American sentiment. And while Bin Laden had been the group’s public face, al-Zawahri was its ideological linchpin.
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