US strike in Afghanistan kills top al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri; Biden to speak Monday night

WASHINGTON — A U.S. strike in Afghanistan over the weekend killed top al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri, according to a U.S. official familiar with the operation.

The official, who not authorized to speak publicly, said the strike was carried out by the CIA.

The White House did not immediately confirm the strike. But President Joe Biden is set to deliver remarks Monday night to announce a successful counterterrorism operation against a “significant” al-Qaida target in Afghanistan.

Al-Zawahri was a mentor to Osama bin Laden, and the two worked together to plot the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. He eventually became bin Laden’s successor.

Biden will speak at 7:30 p.m. ET, according to a last-minute update to the president’s schedule, as he remains isolated in the White House battling a rebound case of COVID-19.

More: Watch President Biden’s remarks here.

Over the weekend, the United States conducted “a counterterrorism operation against a significant” al-Qaida target in Afghanistan, an administration official said. “The operation was successful and there were no civilian casualties.”

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, a combat veteran who sits on the Armed Services Committee, hailed the announcement.

Al-Zawahri “has the blood of far too many U.S. servicemembers and innocent civilians on his hands,” she said.

But some longtime U.S. counterterrorism officials downplayed the significance of the strike, saying that al-Zawahri over the years had never really stepped into the void left behind by the U.S. takeout of al-Qaida founder and leader bin Laden, who had united many terrorist groups under the al-Qaida banner in the late 1990s.

As a result, al-Qaida lacks the same top-down organizational structure that it did before bin Laden’s death more than a decade ago, with at least five affiliates around the world now operating largely independent of each other and the “core al-Qaida” elements still residing in Afghanistan, according to Javed Ali, a senior National Security Council counterterrorism official in the Trump administration who has tracked al-Zawahri and other al-Qaida leaders for decades.

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“This is a continuation of the longstanding U.S. effort to decimate al-Qaida leadership over the last 20 years, and while al-Zawahri had taken over the reins a decade ago, he never held the same status as bin Laden. He was more of a caretaker, not a visionary,” said Ali, who also spent 16 years in top national security positions at the Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of Homeland Security and FBI.

Although he kept a low profile for most of the past 25 years, U.S. officials never gave up the hunt for al-Zawahri, an Egyptian physician and eye surgeon by training who started out Osama bin Laden’s mentor when the two met in Afghanistan in the 1990s.

For years, the two worked hand-in-glove to build out al-Qaida’s global terrorist reach and capabilities, with bin Laden acting as the public face of the organization and al-Zawahri as a master strategist with a deep understanding of Islamic theology. That included playing a management role in some of its most audacious plots, including the coordinated attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001.

It was al-Zawahri who wrote in a 1998 manifesto that killing Americans and their supporters anywhere in the world “is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in every country in which it is possible to do it.”

Three years later, he played a key role in helping bin Laden oversee the suicide hijackings, which were conceived of and orchestrated by a close Pakistani ally Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Al-Zawahri’s role in 9/11 wasn’t highlighted as much as bin Laden’s and Mohammed’s by the 9/11 Commission and other investigative bodies. But his leadership of the strong contingent of Egyptians that had come to Afghanistan to join al-Qaida helped provide the operational skills, organizational know-how and financial expertise to carry out the attacks. Ringleader and lead hijacker of the 9/11 plot, Mohammed Atta, was a fellow Egyptian and so were many of the top commanders of the organization who had pledged allegiance to al-Zawahri.

Al-Zawahri was initially far more influential than bin Laden, serving as the leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the terror group responsible for the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. “He was extremely influential,” Ali told USA TODAY. “He was a doctor, he was a thinker and he was 10 plus years old than bin Laden when they came together” in Afghanistan.

Monday’s announcement comes nearly one year after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, ending America’s longest war amid the Taliban’s return to power

President Joe Biden speaks about “The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022” in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, Thursday, July 28, 2022.

Contributing: Tom Vanden Brook

Reach Joey Garrison on Twitter @joeygarrison. 

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden to announce operation against al-Qaida target Ayman al-Zawahri