Al Qaeda leader Zawahiri killed in US drone strike in Afghanistan

Veteran al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who together with Osama bin Laden  plotted the 9/11 attacks that claimed nearly 2,000 lives, was killed by two missiles fired from a US drone on Monday night. The CIA operation caught him standing on the balcony of a safe house in Kabul.

“Now justice has been delivered and this terrorist leader is no more,” said President Joe Biden. Biden said Zawahiri had also masterminded other acts of violence, including the suicide bombing of the USS Cole naval destroyer in Aden in October 2000 which killed 17 US sailors, and the 1998 attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, in which 223 people died. An Egyptian surgeon, Zawahiri had a $25m reward on his head.