This is a big blow for Al-Qaeda after the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the then supremo of the terror organisation Al-Qaeda.
But who is Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri, let's have a look at 5 big facts about him.
Ayman al-Zawahiri was an Egyptian-born physician and theologian who was the leader of terrorist group al-Qaeda from June 2011 until his death in July 2022
He succeeded Osama bin Laden following his death, and was earlier a senior member of Islamist organizations which led attacks in Asia, Africa, North America and Europe
Ayman al-Zawahiri was listed as under indictment in the United States for his role in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, a series of attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998, in which hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous truck bomb explosions at the United States embassies in the major East African cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya. The attacks brought Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to international attention.
On April 30, 2009, the U.S. State Department reported that al-Zawahiri had emerged as al-Qaeda's operational and strategic commander and that Osama bin Laden was now only the ideological figurehead of the organization. After the 2011 death of bin Laden, a senior U.S. intelligence official said intelligence gathered in the raid showed that bin Laden remained deeply involved in planning: "This compound (where bin Laden was killed) in Abbottabad was an active command-and-control center for al-Qaeda's leader. He was active in operational planning and in driving tactical decisions within al-Qaeda
Al-Zawahiri was killed on July 31, 2022 shortly after 6:00 AM local time , in an early-morning drone strike conducted by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in the upscale Sherpur neighborhood of Kabul. In a statement to reporters, a senior administration official said "over the weekend, the United States conducted a counterterrorism operation against a significant Al Qaeda target in Afghanistan. The operation was successful and there were no civilian casualties
