Biden announces US killing of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri

In a series of tweets Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris applauded a US military strike that successfully killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawihiri at a safe house in Kabul, writing that “the American people and the world are now safer.”

“When @POTUS ended our military mission in Afghanistan, he made a promise that we would maintain the ability to protect Americans from terrorist threats. Tonight, with the killing of al-Qa’ida’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, it is clear we are meeting that commitment,” she said.

Saudi Arabia welcomed the announcement by President Biden on the killing al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, the country’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

The statement added, “Al-Zawahiri planned terrorist operations that killed thousands of innocent people, including Saudis.”

President Biden issued a warning to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups around the world, saying the United States “will always do what is necessary” to ensure the safety and security of Americans.

The remarks came as the President announced that a US drone strike killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul, nearly a year after the country pulled out of Afghanistan.

The President said the United States would never again allow Afghanistan to to become a “terrorist safe haven.”

“My administration will continue to vigilantly monitor and address threats from al Qaeda, no matter where they emanate from,” he added.

Biden said it is his job as commander in chief to ensure the safety of Americans.

“The United States did not seek this war against terror, it came to us. We answered with the same principles and resolve that have shaped us for a generation upon generation,” he said, adding those principles are to “protect the innocent, defend liberty” and “keep the light of freedom burning” as a beacon for the rest of the world.

“We do not break. We never give in. We never back down,” Biden said. 

In this image from television transmitted by the Arab news channel Al-Jazeera on January 30, 2006, al-Qaida's then deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri gestures while addressing the camera.

President Biden said “justice has been delivered” after confirming in a White House speech that a US drone strike killed Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

“He carved a trail of murder and violence against American citizens. American service members, American diplomats, and American interests. And since the United States delivered justice to bin Laden 11 years ago, Zawahiri has been a leader of al Qaeda, the leader, from hiding, he coordinated Al Qaeda’s branches and all around the world, including setting priorities for providing operational guidance that called for and inspired attacks against US targets,” the President said.

Biden explained the details of the operation, stating that after “relentlessly seeking Zawahiri for years under Presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump, our intelligence community located Zawahiri earlier this year. He had moved to downtown Kabul to reunite with members of his immediate family.”

Biden said after “carefully considering the clear and convincing evidence” of Zawahiri’s location, he authorized the “precision strike” that killed him.

“This mission was carefully planned, rigorously minimized the risk of harm to other civilians, and one week ago, after being advised that the conditions were optimal, I gave the final approval to go get him, and the mission was a success,” Biden said.

He added: “None of his family members were hurt, and there were no civilian casualties. I’m sharing this news with the American people now after confirming the mission’s total success through the painstaking work of our counterterrorism community and key allies and partners. My administration has kept congressional leaders informed as well.”

The US drone strike that killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri on his balcony in Kabul over the weekend was the product of months of highly secret planning by President Biden and a tight circle of his senior advisers, who constructed a small scale model of Zawahiri’s safe-house for Biden to examine inside the White House Situation Room as he considered his options.

Details of the strike and its planning were disclosed by a senior administration official as Biden was preparing to announce the mission Monday.

Here are key things to know:

On Biden’s role in the mission: Biden was “deeply engaged in the briefing and immersed in the intelligence,” a senior official said. He asked “detailed questions about what we knew and how we knew it.”

Of particular interest was a scale model of Zawahiri’s house that intelligence officials had constructed and brought into the White House for the President to examine. Biden questioned how the house might be lit by the sun, its construction materials and how the weather could affect any operation, the official said.

“He was particularly focused on ensuring that every step had been taken to ensure the operation would minimize that risk” of civilian casualties, according to the official.

Biden asked his team for more information about the building’s plans and how a strike might effect it. He flew to Camp David later that afternoon.

His team remained behind, convening multiple times in the Situation Room over the next weeks to complete their planning, answer the President’s questions and ensure they’ve taken every contingency to minimize risks. 

A parallel effort by senior administration lawyers was underway to examine the intelligence related to Zawahiri and establish the legal basis for the operation.

On July 25 — as he was isolating with Covid-19 in the White House residence — Biden brought his team back together to receive a final briefing. He again pressed at a “granular level,” the official said, asking about any additional options that could minimize civilian casualties.

He asked about the layout of the house — where the rooms were positioned behind windows and doors on the third floor — and what potential impact the strike would have.

And he went around his team, asking each official’s view.

At the end, he authorized a “precise tailored airstrike” to take out the target.

Five days later, two Hellfire missiles were fired into the balcony of the safe-house in Kabul. “Multiple streams of intelligence” confirmed Zawahiri was killed.

Members of his family, who were in other areas of the home, were unharmed, the official said.

Biden, still isolating in the White House residence with a rebound Covid infection, was informed when the operation began and when it concluded.

The United States successfully undertook “a precision counterterrorism operation” in Afghanistan targeting and killing al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was sheltering in a safe house in Kabul, a senior administration told reporters Monday.

According to the official, “a precise tailored airstrike” using two Hellfire missiles was conducted at 9:48 p.m. ET on Saturday, July 30 – 6:18 a.m. Kabul time – via unmanned air strike and was authorized by President Biden following weeks of meetings with his Cabinet and key advisors. 

No American personnel were on the ground in Kabul at the time of the strike. 

The official said senior Haqqani Taliban figures were aware of Zawahiri’s presence in the area in “clear violation of the Doha agreement,” and even took steps to conceal his presence after Saturday’s successful strike, restricting access to the safe house and rapidly relocating members of Zawahiri’s family, including his daughter and her children, who were intentionally not targeted during the strike and remained unharmed. 

The US did not alert Taliban officials ahead of Saturday’s strike.

The US State Department had offered a reward of up to $25 million for information leading directly to his capture. A June 2021 United Nations report suggested he was located somewhere in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and that he may have been too frail to be featured in propaganda. Pressed Monday, the official declined to say whether there was intelligence implicating Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence in assisting with hiding al-Zawahiri.

Biden, the official told reporters, “was, as always deeply, engaged in the briefing and immersed in the intelligence,” surrounding Saturday’s strike, and explicitly called for steps to “minimize the risk of any civilian casualties and take into account the ramifications of taking such a strike in downtown Kabul.”

According to the official, Biden, who is isolating at the White House after a rebound case of Covid-19, “was kept informed as the operation began and when it was concluded.”

The last known public address of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was an audio message released on July 13 by the media arm of the organization.

The address was 22 minutes long and featured Zawahiri’s trademark historical and theological monologue by the de-facto al Qaeda leader.

In early 2022, it seemed al Qaeda’s leadership was enjoying a more settled period. Zawahiri issued several video messages that almost always provided current proof of life.

In a briefing by a United Nations panel of experts last week it was noted that Zawahiri’s apparent increased comfort and ability to communicate has coincided with the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and the consolidation of power of key al Qaeda allies within their de facto administration.

However, the panel said, al Qaeda is not viewed as posing an immediate international threat from its safe haven in Afghanistan because it lacks an external operational capability and does not currently wish to cause the Taliban international difficulty or embarrassment.

In April of this year, CNN reported that same panel of UN experts, in a different report, said Afghanistan under Taliban rule has the potential to become a safe haven for al Qaeda. 

It said some of al Qaeda’s “closest sympathizers within the Taliban now occupy senior positions in the new de facto Afghan administration,” and confirmed the return to Afghanistan of a former senior aide to the deceased Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

President Biden is speaking now from the White House on a US counterterrorism operation that took place in Afghanistan.

According to multiple sources familiar with the matter, the United States successfully targeted al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone strike in Afghanistan, nearly one year after the US withdrew troops from the country.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a member of the House Foreign Affairs committee, called the US killing of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri “huge” and a “moral victory,” but said the United States needs to continue to keep its eyes on the terrorist group.

“This is huge,” Kinzinger told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “It’s a moral victory, of course. al-Zawahiri has been a target of the United States for decades. It’s an actual victory in terms of making America safer.”

“While al Qaeda has been a little quieter lately, they certainly have not given up on their goals of attacking us,” Kinzinger said. “This is a big win. I congratulate the President for making the call and for the intel and military communities for executing this.”

The Republican lawmaker from Illinois, who is an Air Force veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the strike is “a massive blow” to al Qaeda, adding “we know that is what happened when Osama bin Laden died.”

He said the move to pull US troops out of Afghanistan in August 2021 led al Qaeda to believe “the United States could be beaten.” Even after leaving the country, CNN reported that US intelligence and officials remained concerned that the group could plan a comeback in the country by partnering once again with the Taliban.

Speaking on the challenges of conducting a strike like this after the US withdrawal, Kinzinger said, “The challenge is massive.”

He added, “It’s very difficult. When you have troops and intel assets in place obviously they have their sources, you can get real time information. When you don’t have that, we’ve certainly been hamstrung in our ability to be able to target these kinds of targets.”

He said moving forward, it is going to be important to keep the US’ limitations in mind when discussing partnerships and future actions around the world, such as moves by ISIS or al Qaeda in Iraq, for example.

“As great as technology is, technology cannot replace people on the ground that know things, that tell us things. That’s why it’s important to both have those assets on the ground, but also to be able to follow through on our word so when people tell us stuff, they know we’re not going to abandoned them,” he said. 

CNN’s Mary Kay Mallonee contributed to this report.

The US drone strike in Afghanistan that officials told CNN killed Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri shows the “remarkable capability” of the US — nearly one year after troops withdrew from the country, CNN’s Jim Scuitto said.

“The US ability to carry out operations from outside the embassy, post-withdrawal last August, has very much been in question. Bill Burns, the director of the CIA, has acknowledged publicly, they can’t do it as well, right? They don’t have the same resources, they don’t have the same vision and surveillance without people on the ground,” Sciutto told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

“Remember, that footprint was yes uniformed US soldiers it, was also heavily CIA operatives that were carrying out the bulk really of US counter terror activity before the withdrawal,” he added.

Sciutto also noted the significance of the US successfully targeting Zawahiri, with the leader serving as Osama bin Laden’s second in command and helping Al Qaeda become a “bigger, more capable organization.”

Zawahiri was operationally involved in the 1998 US embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, Scuitto explained and became the head of Al Qaeda following bin Laden’s death.

“He is significant in his own right. And second only to Osama bin laden in terms of stature inside that organization,” he said.

Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who sources say was killed by a US drone strike, Zawahiri, had remained a visible international symbol of the group — 11 years after the US killed Osama bin Laden.

At one point, he acted as bin Laden’s personal physician.

Zawahiri comes from a distinguished Egyptian family, according to the New York Times. He eventually helped to mastermind the deadliest terror attack on American soil, when hijackers turned US airliners into missiles. 

“Those 19 brothers who went out and gave their souls to Allah almighty, God almighty has granted them this victory we are enjoying now,” al-Zawahiri said in a videotaped message released in April 2002. 

It was the first of many taunting messages the terrorist — who became al Qaeda’s leader after US forces killed bin Laden in 2011 — would send out over the years, urging militants to continue the fight against America and chiding US leaders. 

Zawahiri was constantly on the move once the US-led invasion of Afghanistan began after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. At one point, he narrowly escaped a US onslaught in the rugged, mountainous Tora Bora region of Afghanistan, an attack that left his wife and children dead. 

He made his public debut as a Muslim militant when he was in prison for his involvement in the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. 

He spent three years in prison after Sadat’s assassination and claimed he was tortured while in detention. After his release, he made his way to Pakistan, where he treated wounded mujahadeen fighters who fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. 

That was when he met bin Laden and found a common cause. 

“We are working with brother bin Laden,” he said in announcing the merger of his terror group, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, with al Qaeda in May 1998. “We know him since more than 10 years now. We fought with him here in Afghanistan.” 

Together, the two terror leaders signed a fatwa, or declaration: “The judgment to kill and fight Americans and their allies, whether civilians or military, is an obligation for every Muslim.” 

The attacks against the United States and its facilities began weeks later, with the suicide bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 200 people and wounded more than 5,000 others. Zawahiri and bin Laden gloated after they escaped a US cruise missile attack in Afghanistan that had been launched in retaliation.

Then, there was the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000, when suicide bombers on a dinghy detonated their boat, killing 17 American sailors and wounding 39 others.

The culmination of Zawahiri’s terror plotting came on September 11, 2001, when nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Center and Pentagon. A fourth hijacked airliner, headed for Washington, crashed in a Pennsylvania field after passengers fought back.

Since then, Zawahiri raised his public profile, appearing on numerous video and audiotapes to urge Muslims to join the jihad against the United States and its allies. Some of his tapes were followed closely by terrorist attacks. In May 2003, for instance, almost simultaneous suicide bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killed 23 people, including nine Americans, days after a tape thought to contain Zawahiri’s voice was released. 

The US State Department had offered a reward of up to $25 million for information leading directly to his capture. A June 2021 United Nations report suggested he was located somewhere in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and that he may have been too frail to be featured in propaganda.

Read more about Zawahiri here.

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio from Florida and Democrat Sen. Mark Warner from Virginia— the leaders of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence — were briefed on the news of the counterterrorism operation but he declined to confirm it was Ayman al-Zawahiri who was killed.

“What the American people will hear is good news for us and for the world,” Rubio said.

President Biden is expected to give public remarks on the operation Monday evening.

Zawahiri, who just turned 71, had remained a visible international symbol of the group, eleven years after the US killed Osama Bin Laden. 

In a series of tweets, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said that “an airstrike” was carried out on a residential home in Kabul.

He said, “the nature of the incident was not apparent at first” but the security and intelligence services of the Islamic Emirate investigated the incident and “initial findings determined that the strike was carried out by an American drone. 

The tweets by Mujahid came out prior to CNN reporting the United States successfully targeted and killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone strike, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

Zawahiri, who just turned 71 years old, had remained a visible international symbol of the group, eleven years after the US killed Osama Bin Laden.  

Mujahid said the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan “strongly condemns this attack on any pretext and calls it a clear violation of international principles and the Doha Agreement.”

He said actions such as these “are a repetition of the failed experiences of the past 20 years and are against the interests of the United States of America, Afghanistan and the region.”

He closed by saying repeating “such actions will damage” available opportunities

US President Joe Biden is scheduled to speak tonight at 7:30 p.m. ET on “a successful counterterrorism operation” from the Blue Room Balcony, the White House said Monday. 

CNN’s Natasha Bertrand, Kevin Liptak, DJ Judd and Kylie Atwood contributed to this report.

The United States successfully targeted al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone strike in Afghanistan, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

Zawahiri, who just turned 71, had remained a visible international symbol of the group, eleven years after the US killed Osama Bin Laden. 

President Biden will make remarks tonight at 7:30 p.m. ET on “a successful counterterrorism operation” from the Blue Room Balcony, the White House said Monday. 

At one point Zawahiri acted as Osama bin Laden’s personal physician.

Zawahiri comes from a distinguished Egyptian family, according to the New York Times. His grandfather, Rabia’a al-Zawahiri, was an imam at al-Azhar University in Cairo. His great-uncle, Abdel Rahman Azzam, was the first secretary of the Arab League.

The US State Department offered a reward of up to $25 million for information leading directly to the capture of Zawahiri.

A June 2021 United Nations report suggests his location as somewhere in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and that he may be too frail to be featured in propaganda.