CIA Kills Al-Qaida Leader And Number Two Behind The September 11th Attacks

The president said in an evening address that the CIA carried out a strike on an al-Zawahri family home in downtown Kabul, killing him and making sure that Afghanistan would never again be a terrorist safe haven.

Al-Zawahri’s death eliminates the figure who, more than anyone, shaped al-Qaida and who, together with bin Laden carried out the deadliest attack ever on American soil – the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings that crashed into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

A senior administration official said “zero” U.S. personnel were in Kabul and that al-Qaida was trying to reconstitute after the U.S. left Afghanistan last September.

After his killing, the White House said al-Zawahri had continued to provide strategic direction to al-Qaida and urged attacks on the U.S.

U.S. intelligence officials learned al-Zawahri’s wife, daughter, and children had relocated to a safe house in Kabul and later learned al-Zawahri himself was at the safe house. The Taliban government was given no forewarning of the operation.

Only a small group of officials at critical agencies and Vice President Kamala Harris were brought into the process of finding and killing al-Zawahri. Biden gave his final approval for the operation on Thursday.

Al-Zawahri played an enormous role in the terror group’s operations and had a $25 million bounty on his head.

Al-Zawahiri and bin Laden plotted the 9/11 attacks, and photos from the time often showed the glasses-wearing, mild-looking Egyptian doctor sitting by the side of bin Laden.

Al-Qaida’s leader in Afghanistan rebuilt the organization’s leadership after the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and installed allies as lieutenants in critical positions. He also reshaped the organization into a franchise chain with branches in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, North Africa, Somalia, Yemen, and Asia.

Al-Zawahri tried to coopt the Arab Spring by urging Islamic hard-liners to take over in the nations where leaders had fallen. But these Islamists have stark ideological differences with al-Qaida and reject its agenda and leadership.

Al-Zawahri was a more divisive figure than bin Laden, who was soft-spoken and almost spiritual. He picked ideological fights with critics within the jihadi camp, wagging his finger scoldingly in his videos.

Al-Zawahri was still alive when a video of him praising an Indian Muslim woman surfaced in April.

Afghanistan’s Taliban government confirmed the airstrike but did not mention al-Zawahri or other casualties. It said the attack violated international principles and the Doha Agreement.

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