71-year-old Ayman al-Zawahiri, who took over the leadership role of the terrorist group al-Qaeda after the death of Osama bin Laden, was killed in a drone attack in the Afghan capital of Kabul early on Sunday. It is the first known attack by the United States since American forces left Afghanistan last year, according to the report The New York Times.
Even without nearby bases in the country, the United States can from several directions send unmanned drones as well as manned fighter jets within a certain distance, from land bases along the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean and even the United States.
“It is a major success for US counter-terrorism efforts. A result of countless hours of intelligence gathering over many years,” Mick Mulroy, a former CIA official and senior Pentagon official, said in a statement.
In a Twitter post, a Taliban spokesman condemned the operation, saying the attack was carried out on a residential building in Kabul’s Sherpur district, an affluent neighborhood in the center of the capital.
Who was Zawahiri?
Ayman al-Zawahiri was a former Egyptian surgeon who helped coordinate the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York, USA that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Both Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden escaped capture when US-led forces overthrew Afghanistan’s Taliban government in late 2001 after the 9/11 attacks.