Comment The United States has killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaida leader and one of the world’s most wanted terrorists who oversaw the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks along with the group’s founder, Osama bin Laden, US officials say familiar with the subject. Both men fled US forces in Afghanistan in late 2001, and Zawahiri’s whereabouts have long been a mystery. Bin Laden was killed in a raid by US forces in Pakistan in 2011. The Associated Press first reported that Zawahiri had been killed. It was not immediately clear where and when Zawahiri died and which element of the US government had carried out the mission. The CIA carried out a drone strike over the weekend in Kabul, according to officials familiar with the matter. A Taliban spokesman tweeted that an airstrike had taken place “on an inhabited residence” in the capital. The White House said Monday that President Biden would make remarks in the evening about “a successful counterterrorism operation,” but did not mention Zawahiri. This is a developing story and will be updated. Ellen Nakashima and Devlin Barrett contributed to this report.
