On August 1 (local time), United States President Joe Biden announced that terrorist organization Al-Qaeda’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri had been killed in airstrikes. In his statement, Biden said, “I authorized a precision strike that would remove him from the battlefield, once and for all.”

71-years-old Zawahiri used to be a close aide and personal physician of Al-Qaeda founder and chief Osama Bin Laden. Since Laden was neutralized 11 years ago by the US, Zawahiri had become a prominent face of the terrorist organization.

As per reports, he was hiding in downtown Kabul to reunite with his family. As per reports, he was killed in “a precisely tailored airstrike”. The US armed forces used drones to fire two Hellfire missiles for the kill at around 9:48 PM ET on July 31. The authorization for the military action to eliminate Zawahiri was given after several meetings with the US cabinet and the key advisers. At the time of the strike, no American personnel was present in Kabul.

Furthermore, Taliban officials were not informed about the strike. The reason behind it was explained as the Taliban was aware of his presence in Kabul but chose not to inform the US officials, which was a clear violation of the Doha agreement. As per reports, the Taliban’s senior leaders allegedly took precautionary steps to conceal the presence of wanted terrorists in the area and relocated his family members rapidly. Notably, the US officials said the family of Zawahiri was intentionally not targeted during the strike.

Reaction from Taliban

Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid took on Twitter to inform us about the air strike. He said in Pashto, “An air strike was carried out on a residential house in Sherpur area of Kabul city on July 31.” The statement added that the nature of the incident was not revealed at first, but the later investigation found that it was done by American drones.

He 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. Such actions 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. Repeating such actions will damage the available opportunities.” (Translated using Google Translate)

Biden called it ‘justice served’

Calling it ‘justice delivered’, Biden said Zawahiri was deeply involved in the planning of the 9/11 attack. He added, “One of the most responsible for the attacks that murdered 2,977 people on American soil. For decades, he was the mastermind of attacks against Americans.”

Biden said, “Now, justice has been delivered, and this terrorist leader is no more. People around the world no longer need to fear the vicious and determined killer,” he continued. “The United States continues to demonstrate our resolve and our capacity to defend the American people against those who seek to do us harm. We make it clear again tonight that no matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out.”

Speaking about the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, Biden said, “[I] made the decision that after 20 years of war, the United States no longer needed thousands of boots on the ground in Afghanistan to protect America from terrorists who seek to do us harm, and I made a promise to the American people, that we continue to conduct effective counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan and beyond. We’ve done just that.”

Bin Laden was the face of al-Qaida, but Ayman al-Zawahiri was its hate-filled heart

One of the last times al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was on center stage was roughly 40 years ago when the international media captured his rants from a cage at the back of an Egyptian courtroom.

The cameras caught him shouting about the torture he and other prisoners suffered at the hands of Egyptian jailers. He started the group chanting: "We are Muslims. We are Muslims."

Zawahiri's prison time in Egypt not only set him against the regime there but also marked the beginning of his lifelong hatred of the U.S.

When he eventually joined forces with Osama bin Laden, he passed that enmity along, but it ended for al-Zawahiri on Sunday local time in Afghanistan after an unmanned U.S drone fired two hellfire missiles at a safe house in Kabul, killing him.

President Biden noted Monday that al-Zawahiri was Osama bin Laden's deputy during 9/11 and that he was "deeply involved in the planning."

"For decades he was the mastermind behind attacks against Americans," Biden added, noting the 2000 USS Cole attack and the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Biden also detailed al-Zawahiri's role in leading al-Qaida since bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in 2011, including calling on followers in recent weeks to attack the U.S. and allies.

Bruce Hoffman, director of the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University, said in 2011 that while al-Zawahiri had a reputation for being prickly and dogmatic, he might emerge as an even stronger leader than bin Laden.

"Unlike bin Laden, he had the street cred at having been a dyed-in-the-wool terrorist from the time he was a teenager," Hoffman said. "OK, he's not as telegenic as bin Laden. He lacks bin Laden's charisma. He doesn't have bin Laden's mellifluous voice, but he still is a very powerful figure within the movement."

Bin Laden had talked about creating a base for a broader Islamist movement as if it were a mantra. He wanted an organization that didn't need him to survive. And al-Zawahiri has kept it going in the decade since bin Laden's death.

Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who has been killed in a US drone strike in Afghanistan, was the key idealogue behind the global terror network for several decades, but never revived the status it had under charismatic founder Osama bin Laden.

The Egyptian eye doctor, 71, had a central role in Al-Qaeda's signature attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the massive assault on the United States itself on September 11, 2001, that left almost 3,000 dead. But during the decade that he presided over the group following a US raid that killed bin Laden in 2011, it never recovered its prominence, as the aggressive Islamic State group took the lead in the jihadist movement, seizing large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria and declaring a caliphate.

But even as some analysts said Zawahiri was increasingly aged and slow, he appeared to be seeking to rebuild the group anew in partnership with the Taliban since they seized control of Afghanistan last August.

"Justice has been delivered and this terrorist leader is no more," President Joe Biden said as he announced Zawahiri's death in a US drone strike in Kabul, where he had apparently moved after hiding for years on the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Zawahiri had praised Hijab protests in Karnataka and called Muskan Khan a ‘noble woman’

Ayman al-Zawahiri, the head of al Qaeda, had released a video message focussing on the Hijab controversy raging in Karnataka, which he claims had exposed “the reality of Hindu India and the deception of its pagan democracy”. The video, the first statement made by the world’s most-wanted jihadist since September, was posted to al Qaeda online groups late on Tuesday night.

In the eight-minute statement, al-Zawahiri hailed Muskan Khan — the Karnataka student who became famous for her pro-hijab protest in February — for having “challenged a mob of Hindu polytheists with defiant slogans of Takbeer [God is the Greatest]”.

“May Allah rewards her for showing a moral lesson to sisters plagued by an inferiority complex vis-a-vis the decadent Western world,” al-Zawahiri said.

Al-Zawahiri’s last video, released in September 2021, came on the back of rumors that he had died and did not reference the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, which had taken place the previous month. The Taliban’s victory had been hailed by al Qaeda as the jihadist movement’s “greatest victory”.

In Tuesday’s statement, al-Zawahiri told Indians in the subcontinent to “avoid being deceived by the pagan Hindu democracy of India which, to begin with, was never more than a tool to oppress Muslims”. “It is exactly the same tool of deception the true nature of which was exposed by France Holland and Switzerland when they banned the Hijab while allowing nudity,” he had said.

“We must understand the way out is by holding on to our Shariah (Muslim religious law),” al-Zawahiri went on, “uniting as a single Ummah (Arabic word for community) from China to the Islamic Maghreb, from the caucuses to Somalia.”

He also lashed out at other South Asian states, saying that “Governments imposed on us, specifically in Pakistan and Bangladesh, do not defend us, rather they defend the very enemies they have empowered to fight against us”.