“Designated as the instigator of the bombing of a US destroyer and the 9/11 attacks, but lack of evidence”
The New York Times (NYT) reported on the 8th (local time) that US President Joe Biden inflated the trajectory of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the head of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization that was recently killed.
President Biden announced on the 1st that he had killed al-Zawahiri in a drone strike in Afghanistan, explaining that he was the main culprit in the 2000 bombing of the US destroyer USS Cole and the planning of the September 11 attacks in 2001.
On October 12, 2000, USS Cole was attacked by a bomb-loaded boat while moored in the port of Aden, Yemen.
The attack killed 17 U.S. sailors.
In the meantime, the US has attributed the two incidents to al-Qaeda.
However, the New York Times pointed out that President Biden’s remarks were exaggerated compared to the evidence obtained by authorities, related persons and expert testimony.
“I was confused by President Biden’s explanation of al-Zawahiri,” said Mark Sageman, a former CIA agent who has written several books on terrorism. It’s not accurate.”
The New York Times pointed out that several al-Qaeda agents were charged with conspiring to blow up a destroyer, but the document did not mention al-Zawahiri as the instigator of the operation.
The complaint once morest a Guantanamo inmate charged with conspiracy in the 9/11 attacks only states that al-Zawahiri declared war on the United States with bin Laden in 1998.
Ali Suphan, who led the FBI investigation into al-Qaeda, said al-Zawahiri was not the instigator of either operation, but as a senior leadership, he helped set al-Qaeda’s strategic direction at the time.
Al-Zawahiri served as interim leader following the assassination of Osama bin Laden in 2011, and became the official second-in-command in 2020 following al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, Abu Mohammad al-Masri (Abdullah Ahmad Abdullah), was killed in Iran.
/yunhap news
