Washington - (AFP) - US President Joe Biden announced Monday that the United States had killed Ayman al-Zawahiri , the leader of al-Qaeda and one of the world's most wanted terrorists, who is suspected of being the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Biden said in a televised address that he gave the green light to the high-resolution raid that successfully targeted al-Zawahiri in the Afghan capital over the weekend.

"Justice has been done and this terrorist leader has been eliminated," Biden added, adding that he hopes the killing of al-Zawahiri will help the families of the victims of the September 11 attacks to "turn the page."

A senior administration official said that al-Zawahiri was on the balcony of his house in Kabul when it was targeted by Hellfire missiles, an hour after sunrise on July 31, and that there were no American soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan .

"We don't know if he ever left the safe house. We got to know Al-Zawahiri on several occasions and for long periods of time on the balcony, where he was eventually targeted," the official added.

According to the official version, the president gave the green light to carry out the strike on July 25, while he was in isolation due to his COVID-19 infection. Biden said there were no civilian casualties in the operation.

The official considered Al-Zawahiri's presence in the Afghan capital, Kabul, "a clear violation" of the Doha agreement that the Taliban signed with the United States in 2020 and paved the way for the American withdrawal from Afghanistan.

This is the first raid by the United States on an al-Qaeda target in Afghanistan since the withdrawal of American forces from the country on August 31, 2021.

Al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian doctor who became one of the world's most wanted men after he was accused of masterminding the September 2001 attacks in the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people, has been hiding from public view since then.

Al-Zawahiri took over the leadership of Al-Qaeda after the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011, and the United States has allocated a reward of $ 25 million for anyone who provides information about him.

On Saturday morning, the Afghan Ministry of Interior denied reports circulating on social media of a drone strike in Kabul, telling AFP that a missile hit an "empty house" in the capital, causing no casualties.

Early Tuesday, Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted about an "air attack" that targeted a house in the Sherpur district of Kabul.

In his tweet, he said, "The nature of the incident was not revealed at first. The security and intelligence services in the Islamic Emirate investigated the incident and concluded in their preliminary investigations that the attack was carried out by American drones."

The news comes a month before the first anniversary of the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, leaving the country under the control of the Taliban, which has fought Western forces for the past two decades.

Under the 2020 Doha agreement, the Taliban pledged not to allow Afghanistan to be used again as a staging ground for jihadists, but experts believe the group has not severed ties with al Qaeda.

"What we do know is that Haqqani, a senior Taliban leader, was aware of his presence in Kabul," the Biden official said.

Sirajuddin Haqqani, deputy leader of the Taliban and interior minister, heads the Haqqani network, a sub-group of the Taliban that has been blamed for some of the deadliest violence of the past 20 years and is described by US officials as a "real arm" of the Pakistani intelligence service.

Al-Zawahiri, 71, lacks the powerful charisma that helped bin Laden mobilize jihadists from around the world, but he has channeled his analytical skills to serve the al-Qaeda cause.

He is believed to be the chief strategist and true mastermind behind al-Qaeda's operations, including the 9/11 attacks, as well as bin Laden's personal physician.

With the decline of al-Qaeda's role in the years following the US invasion of Afghanistan, the US administration official considered that al-Zawahiri was "one of the last remaining figures of this kind of importance."

Colin Clark, a researcher at the Soufan Center, believes that the organization is "at a crossroads."

"Despite al-Zawahiri's leadership, which minimized al-Qaeda's losses during the rebuilding phase, the group still faces serious challenges as it moves forward. One of these challenges is who will lead al-Qaeda after al-Zawahiri's departure," he said.

Al-Zawahiri's father was a well-known physician who found him an imam at Cairo's Al-Azhar mosque, the highest religious authority for Sunni Muslims.
Al-Zawahiri Jr. became involved in the extremist Islamic community in Egypt at an early age, and published several books on Islamic fundamentalism, which for many was a symbol of the radical Islamic movement.

In the mid-eighties, Al-Zawahiri left Egypt for Peshawar in northwest Pakistan, where the resistance against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was concentrated.

At that time, while thousands of Islamic fighters were pouring into Afghanistan, the meeting took place between Al-Zawahiri and Bin Laden, and in 1998 he was one of five signatories to Bin Laden's "fatwa" calling for attacks against Americans.

The SITE website, which deals with extremist Islamic movements, stated that some jihadists doubt the veracity of the report on al-Zawahiri's death, while others believe that he fulfilled his desire for "martyrdom."

Regarding the future of al-Qaeda without him, SITE said that the jihadists' morale was high, as one of them wrote, "If Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri died, there would be a thousand other Aymans."