Comment Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda and one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, was killed in a US drone strike in Kabul. The 71-year-old was widely seen as the mastermind behind the notorious terrorist group and its vision of attacking the West – including the September 11, 2001 attacks that catapulted al-Qaeda from relative obscurity to household name in the United States. President Biden said in an address to the nation on Monday that Zawahiri’s death — after eluding capture for decades — sent a clear message: “No matter how long it takes, no matter where you’re hiding, if you’re a threat to our people, the United States will find you and get you out.” Ayman al-Zawahiri, leader of al-Qaeda, has been killed at the age of 71 The strike is the latest successful US operation against al Qaeda and Islamic State leaders. Biden said Zawahiri’s death should help ensure that Afghanistan can no longer “become a terrorist safe haven” and a “launch pad” for attacks against the United States. Security experts say the operation demonstrates that the United States is still able to carry out precision strikes in Afghanistan after last year’s withdrawal of troops from the ground. On the other hand, it also highlights the Taliban’s apparent willingness to host al-Qaeda operatives in the region. Here’s a look at what Zawahiri’s death means for al-Qaeda.
When was Al Qaeda founded? Al Qaeda grew out of battlefield ties forged in the Afghan insurgency against the Soviet Union, which was redirected to fight the West. The group, founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden, attracted disaffected recruits who opposed American support for Israel and Middle Eastern dictatorships. When the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in 1996, they gave Al Qaeda the sanctuary that allowed it to run training camps and plan attacks, including 9/11. The World Created by 9/11: A Weakened, But Persisting Al Qaeda Threat
What was Ayman al-Zawahiri’s role in al-Qaeda? Americans knew him as al Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, bin Laden’s bespectacled, bushy-bearded deputy. In fact, longtime observers say, he provided the ideological direction while bin Laden was the public face of the terrorist group. Zawahiri merged his Egyptian militant group with al Qaeda in the 1990s. For decades, he served as the “mastermind behind attacks against Americans,” Biden said Monday — including the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, which killed 17 American sailors and injured dozens more, and the bombing of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed hundreds and injured dozens. “Killing the Americans and their allies – political and military – is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in every country in which it is possible to do it,” Zawahiri wrote in a 1998 speech. After al Qaeda was forced out of its base in Afghanistan in early 2002, it was largely Zawahiri who led the group’s resurgence in the lawless tribal region across the border in Pakistan, the Washington Post wrote in an obituary on Monday.
What happened to Al Qaeda after bin Laden was killed? When bin Laden was killed in 2011, his No. 2, Zawahiri, took over as leader. Although he was the intellectual force behind the terrorist movement, some experts say Zawahiri lacked bin Laden’s charisma. He remained a face but failed to prevent the splintering of the Islamist movement in Syria and other conflict zones after 2011. His hold on an extensive network of subsidiaries across Africa, Asia and the Middle East weakened. The Islamic State terrorist group, which grew out of al-Qaeda’s Iraqi affiliate, has sought to position itself as a more ruthless alternative. What is ISIS-K? Here’s what the Taliban takeover means for al-Qaeda and the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan. In his final years, Zawahiri thrived largely on the public eye, presiding over al-Qaeda during a period of decline, with most of the group’s founding members dead or in hiding. At the time of the US withdrawal last August, analysts described al Qaeda in Afghanistan as a “skeleton of its former self” after two decades of conflict and counterterrorism operations. A United Nations report in July estimated that up to 400 al-Qaeda fighters remain in Afghanistan. Some security experts feared an al Qaeda resurgence under the Taliban. At the time of his death, US intelligence said Zawahiri, rather than being in hiding, was living with his family in central Kabul in a high-security residential area where many senior Taliban officials reside.
What will happen now with Al Qaeda? Analysts say that in the past, al Qaeda has adapted to the loss of leaders, with new faces emerging in their place. Today, however, the group is fragmented, with branches and subsidiaries spanning the globe from West Africa to India. The question remains whether these groups will focus on local conflicts or come together for more global ambitions. Charles Lister, a terrorism expert at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, said al Qaeda “now faces an acute succession crisis.” Senior leader Saif al-Adel is technically next in line to take the helm, but he is based in Iran, which has caused his affiliates to question his credibility in the past, Lister wrote on Monday. His possible rise could be the “death knell” for al-Qaeda’s ambitions as a global organization as its affiliates deepen their independence from the group, Lister said. Al Qaeda has not carried out any major terrorist attacks in the United States or Europe in recent years since the bombings that killed 52 people in London in 2005. Some attackers were inspired by al Qaeda, such as a Saudi military trainee who killed three Americans sailors at a US base in Florida in December 2019. A knife attacker who fatally stabbed a man and a woman in an attack near London Bridge that same year was previously part of an al-Qaeda-inspired cell. Claire Parker and Joby Warrick contributed to this report.
