“The operation was successful and caused no civilian casualties,” the source told reporters.
The target of the “successful counterterrorism operation” in Afghanistan announced by a senior US official on Monday was al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was killed over the weekend in a drone strike, according to reports. American media.
Zawahiri had taken the head of the terrorist organization following the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011. US President Joe Biden is due to speak on the subject during a televised address at 7:30 p.m. (2330 GMT).
This announcement comes almost a year following the chaotic withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan, which had allowed the Taliban to regain control of the country twenty years later.
The United States had also announced in mid-July that it had killed the leader of the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria, Maher al-Agal, during a drone strike, an operation which had “significantly weakened the capacity of the ‘ISIS to prepare, fund and conduct its operations in the region,’ a US military spokesman said.