The Taliban said Thursday they have no knowledge of Ayman al-Zawahiri's presence in Afghanistan, days after US President Joe Biden announced the Al-Qaeda chief's killing by a drone strike in Kabul. Zawahiri's assassination is the biggest blow to Al-Qaeda since US special forces killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, and calls into question the Taliban's promise not to harbour militant groups. "The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has no information about Ayman al-Zawahiri's arrival and stay in Kabul," said an official statement -- the Taliban's first mention of his name since Biden's announcement. Zawahiri was believed to be in charge of steering Al-Qaeda's operations -- including the 9/11 attacks -- as well as serving as bin Laden's personal doctor. A senior US administration official said the 71-year-old Egyptian was on the balcony of a three-storey house in the Afghan capital when targeted with two Hellfire missiles early on Sunday.

At first glance, the July 31 killing of al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri by a US drone attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, appears to be the most significant setback the group has experienced since the death of its founder, Osama bin Laden, in 2011. However, throughout the decade he administered al-Qaeda, al-Zawahiri worked to ensure the organisation has all the necessary tools in place to survive his death. As such, while the operation that eliminated one of the organisers of the 9/11 attacks is undoubtedly a major win for the current US administration, it is unlikely to debilitate the group. Indeed, the fallout from this targeted assassination will be minimal for al-Qaeda. Al-Zawahiri, seen by many as nothing other than a "grey bureaucrat", can easily be replaced by someone with a similar managerial mindset.

A United States drone strike killed Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri at a hideout in the Afghan capital, President Joe Biden said Monday, adding "justice had been delivered" to the families of the September 11, 2001 attacks. In a somber televised address, Biden said he gave the final go-ahead for the high-precision strike that successfully targeted Zawahiri in the Afghan capital over the weekend. "Justice has been delivered and this terrorist leader is no more," Biden said, adding that he hoped Zawahiri's death would bring "closure" to families of the 3,000 people killed in the United States on 9/11. A senior administration official said Zawahiri was on the balcony of a house in Kabul when he was targeted with two Hellfire missiles, an hour after sunrise on July 31, and that there had been no US boots on the ground in Afghanistan. "We are not aware of him ever leaving the safe house. We identified Zawahiri on multiple occasions for sustained periods of time on the balcony of where he was ultimately struck," the official said.

President Joe Biden's surprise announcement Monday night--that a U.S. drone strike over the weekend killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, leader of al-Qaida and co-architect of the 9/11 terrorist attack--is both more and less significant than it might seem at first glance. On the one hand, mainly because of the West's counter-terrorism strategies, al-Qaida is far from the potent global force that it was a decade ago. Its presence has been muted, and Zawahiri himself has hidden so far out of sight that one prominent expert speculated back in November that he might have been killed already. On the other hand, one fact about this drone strike hints at a much larger finding: It took place in Afghanistan. It turns out Zawahiri was living with his family in a large safehouse in downtown Kabul--meaning he had to be there with the Taliban's full blessing. This means that, contrary to the Taliban's assurances, they have been plotting a revival of their alliance with al-Qaida--the alliance that Osama bin Laden formed at the turn of the century and that spawned the attack on the World Trade Center.

In 2002, when I profiled Ayman al-Zawahiri for The New Yorker, he was called "the man behind bin Laden." But since bin Laden was killed by American special forces in 2011, Zawahiri has been Al Qaeda's leader. Zawahiri and bin Laden were very different men, not friends but allies, using each other for the skills and resources they could each provide. Al Qaeda would not have survived without the dynamic they created together. Zawahiri, reportedly killed in Afghanistan by a U.S. drone strike over the weekend, was a doctor--a highly-educated professional who chose to devote himself to violent revolution.

Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has been killed in a CIA drone strike in Afghanistan, United States President Joe Biden has said. Al-Zawahiri was killed on Sunday in the biggest blow to the group since its founder Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011. "Justice has been delivered and this terrorist leader is no more," Biden said in a special address from the White House. Intelligence had located al-Zawahiri's family in Kabul earlier this year, Biden said, adding that no civilians or members of Al-Zawahiri's family had been killed in the attack. An Egyptian surgeon with a $25m reward on his head, al-Zawahiri helped coordinate the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US that killed nearly 3,000 people.