Al-Zawahiri’s killing marks a major victory for the Biden administration’s counterterrorism efforts in the region. The US president has faced severe criticism since leaving, which took place a year ago this month. A senior US official said the successful strike proved America remains “capable of tracking down and locating even the most wanted terrorist in the world” without US troops on the ground.

The Taliban “knew that al-Zawahiri was in Kabul,” the US claims

The official added that senior Haqqani Taliban officials “were aware of al-Zawahiri’s presence in Kabul” and took steps to conceal it in the hours after the drone attack. “Members of the Haqqani Taliban acted quickly to remove Zawahiri’s wife, his daughter and her children to another location, consistent with a wider effort to conceal that they were living in the state,” the official said. Al-Zawahiri’s presence in Kabul was a “clear violation” of the 2020 agreement the Taliban signed with the Trump administration, in which they promised not to allow Afghanistan to become a haven for international terrorism, the official said. “Moving forward with the Taliban we will continue to hold them accountable,” the senior official said. In a statement, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed the strike and strongly condemned it, calling it a violation of “international principles and the Doha Agreement.” The operation was welcomed by Republican congressman and veteran, Adam Kinzinger. “It’s a moral victory,” he told CNN. “Zawahiri has been a target of the United States for decades. It’s a real win in terms of making America safer.”

The Man Who Shaped Bin Laden

An Egyptian surgeon, al-Zawahiri was bin Laden’s right-hand man and was considered the clear favorite to take over the leadership of al-Qaeda. Their bond was forged in the late 1980s when al-Zawahiri allegedly groomed bin Laden in the caves of Afghanistan as Soviet bombing shook the mountains around them.