Introduction by Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio
I relaunch the news of the killing of the Al Qaeda commander as reported by Defense One, a specialized information site very close to the Pentagon because at the moment there is no other information regarding the mission of an American drone in Afghanistan.
Within the article I have included multiple links to previous reports that highlight the ambiguous relations between Al Qaeda, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the US. For a broader reflection…
by Defense One
Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan, President Joe Biden said Monday.
“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,” Biden said in a televised prime-time address.
An unmanned aerial vehicle launched two Hellfire missiles at a safe house in Kabul just before 10 p.m. Eastern time on July 30, hitting al-Zawahiri when he stepped onto a balcony, the official said. Family members in other parts of the safe house were not harmed, and there are no indications that any other civilians were hurt in the strike, a senior administration official said.
The official declined to say which agency conducted the strike, saying that it was a “team effort” by the American government. The official said there were “zero” American personnel on the ground in Afghanistan during the operation.
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The strike against al-Zawahiri, who succeeded Osama bin Laden after the al-Qaeda founder was killed by Navy SEALs in 2011, is the first major American military action in Afghanistan since the military withdrew last August. The departure of Western troops raised concerns that the U.S. government would struggle to conduct missions and collect intelligence from “over the horizon”—i.e., outside the country.
“Even as the president ended two decades of war in Afghanistan by getting American men and women out of harm’s way there, he promised that we would establish a capacity outside the country to identify and address terrorist threats to Americans,” the official said. “He made good on that with this action.”
Al-Zawahiri, who had served as bin Laden’s deputy, was involved in the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, according to the FBI, and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole. He also helped organize the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.
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