Al-Qaida leader killed in US drone strike, Biden says

WASHINGTON－United States President Joe Biden announced on Monday evening that al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri had been killed in a drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, over the weekend.

"I authorized a precision strike that would remove him from the battlefield," Biden said in live remarks from the Blue Room balcony at the White House. "There were no civilian casualties."

Al-Zawahiri, 71, became head of al-Qaida in 2011 after its longtime leader Osama bin Laden was shot and killed by US forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan, during a raid.

Biden's announcement came nearly a year after the US military completed a withdrawal from Afghanistan that it invaded in response to the Sept 11 terrorist attacks carried out in 2001 by al-Qaida operatives against targets on US soil, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

"He was deeply involved in the planning of 9/11," Biden said of al-Zawahiri.

"He coordinated al-Qaida's branches and all around the world, including setting priorities for providing operational guidance that called for and inspired attacks against US targets."

A senior administration official briefed reporters that the drone strike was conducted in Kabul on Sunday morning with hellfire missiles that targeted and killed al-Zawahiri, who was standing on the balcony of a safe house.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid had previously confirmed that a strike took place in Kabul on Sunday and strongly condemned it, calling it a violation of "international principles", Reuters reported.

Preparation for the operation was said to have taken months. Biden gave the final authorization on July 25 while he was quarantined at the White House due to a COVID-19 infection, according to the official.

Over 929,000 people have died in post-9/11 wars due to direct war violence, and several times as many due to the reverberating effects of war, showed figures from the Costs of War Project at Brown University.

The US federal price tag for post-9/11 wars is over $8 trillion, which have also been accompanied by violations of human rights and civil liberties in the US and abroad, the project found.

Xinhua - Agencies