AL QAEDA LEADER AYMAN AL ZAWAHIRI KILLED IN US DRONE ATTACK
It was a weekend United States of America led unmanned coordinated drone attack that eliminated Al Qaeda most wanted hitman Ayman Al Zawahiri at a hideout inside Afghan capital. The President of United States of America Joe Biden on Monday 1st of August 2022 said “Justice had been delivered” to the families of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
President Joe Biden in a solemn televised speech gave out the final go-ahead order for the high tech-security and well-coordinated specific unmanned drone strike that eliminated Al Zawahiri saying “Justice had been delivered and this terrorist leader is no more” Biden told his countrymen and women as he added that e hoped Zawahiri’s death would bring forth “Closure” to the families of the over 3,000 people who were killed in the United States of America 9/11 hijacked airplane attack on World Trade Center building and other landmark sites.
An insider’s account by a Senior administration official said Al Zawahiri was on a balcony of a house In Kabul when he was targeted with two Hellfire missiles, an hour after sunrise on July 31st, 2022 as there was no US boot on the ground inside Afghanistan when he was eliminated. ”We are not aware of him ever leaving the safe House. We identified Zawahiri on multiple occasions for sustained periods of time on the balcony of where he was ultimately struck,” the source admitted.
Stating further the US Senior official revealed that President Biden authorized the strike exactly on 25th of July, 2022 while he was recovering from a Covid 19 Isolation center admitting that there were no civilian casualties in the attack. This marked for the first time when a known over-the-horizon strike by the United States of America on Al -Qeada target in Afghanistan since the US Forces moved out from Afghanistan soil on August 31, 2021.
Again, US Secretary of state Anthony Blinken said on Monday evening of 1st of August,2022 that” by hosting and sheltering” Al Zawahiri, the Taliban had “grossly violated the Doha Qatar Agreement” signed in 2020 that led to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Recall that Al Zawahiri, an Egyptian Surgeon who grew up in a comfortable Cairo household before he became radicalized in violent form, had been on the run for the past 20-years since the 9/11 attacks on US soil. He took over Al-Qaeda immediately Osama bin Laden was killed in a similar coordinated attack by US Special Forces in Pakistan in 2011 with a $25 million bounty placed on his head.
In a quick reaction over the weekend, Afghan interior Ministry denied reports which made the round on Social media about a drone strike in Kabul, telling AFP a rocket struck “an empty house” in the capital, causing no causalities.
But on Tuesday 2nd of August, 2022, however Taliban Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted that an “aerial attack” was carried out on a residence in the Sherpur area of the city. “The nature of the incident was not revealed at first. The security and intelligence agencies of the Islamic Emirates investigated the incident and found in their preliminary investigations that the attack was carried out by American drones,” he tweeted.
This incident happened barely one year after the US final withdrawal from Afghanistan which left the country in the hands of Taliban insurgency that fought Western forces for two decades.
One of the contents of the Doha 2020 agreement, the Taliban admitted that they will never allow Afghanistan to be used as a launchpad for international Jihadism, given experts inquiries it seems the Taliban never broke its direct links with Al-Qeada group. “What we know is that the Senior Haqqani Taliban were aware of his presence in Kabul,” the President Biden official admitted.
On the other hand, Taliban Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani also leads the most feared Haqqani network, being a brutal subset of the Taliban that has been associated with worst violence that took place in the past 20-years which US intelligence has described as being the “Veritable arm” of Pakistani intelligence.
AYMAN AL ZAWAHIRI 71, TURNED JIHADSIT
The Egyptian born 71 years old trained Medics doctor was not lucky to have same charismatic qualities associated with late Osama bin Laden which rallied round jihadists around the world but he was found to have directed his analytical mind into the A-Qeada led jihadism.