The drone attack was carried out using two Hellfire missiles and without any American military presence on the ground, said an American official, proof according to him of the capacity of the United States “identify and locate even the world’s most wanted terrorists and take action to eliminate them“.
Ayman al-Zawahiri had been spotted”repeatedly and for long periods of time on the balcony where he was finally hitby the strike in the Afghan capital, he added.
Over the weekend, the Afghan interior minister denied reports of a drone strike in Kabul, telling AFP that a rocket hit “an empty houseof the capital.
In a statement posted on Twitter on Monday before Joe Biden’s intervention, the Taliban spokesperson had however acknowledged the existence of a “air attack“, assigned to a “american drone“.
Joe Biden, who was ill with Covid-19 and had undergone a strict isolation regime when he ordered the strike on July 25, clarified during his remarks that the operation did not “no civilian casualties“.
Ayman al-Zawahiri’s presence in Kabul is also a “violation claire“of the agreements concluded in Doha in 2020 with the Taliban, who had undertaken not to welcome Al-Qaeda on their soil, noted the senior American official.
In their press release, the Afghan Islamists also accused the United States of having derogated from these agreements, by conducting a strike on their territory.
