Biden says US killed al-Qaeda leader al-Zawahiri in drone strike
Ayman al-Zawahiri is seen in a video obtained from the IntelCenter released on October 4, 2009.
US President Joe Biden announced Monday evening that al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri had been killed in a drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan.
"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 became head of al-Qaeda 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 September 11, 2001, terror attacks carried out by al-Qaeda operatives against targets on American soil, which killed nearly 3,000 people.
