Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. A drone strike believed to have been carried out by the U.S.-led coalition in northwestern Syria on Friday killed two operatives with an al-Qaida-linked group, Syrian opposition activists said. The two militants were killed while riding a motorcycle near the northern village of Qah, close to the Turkish border, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, and several other activist collectives. There was no immediate comment from the U.S. military.

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.

During his long career as a polemicist and a strategist of terror, Ayman al-Zawahiri often taunted the United States. He hewed to the familiar theme that America was an apostate power at war with Islam. But he also described it as a spent force. In a video released this spring, he said that "U.S. weakness" was responsible for the war triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and he mocked the country's standing "after its defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan, after the economic disasters caused by the 9/11 invasions, after the coronavirus pandemic, and after it left its ally Ukraine as prey for the Russians." The U.S. drone strike in Kabul last Saturday that killed Zawahiri, who was seventy-one, added a punctuation mark to the long search for justice for the victims of 9/11 and of other deadly attacks that Zawahiri directly approved, such as the bombing of two U.S. Embassies in Africa in 1998, which killed twelve Americans and more than two hundred Africans.

In his short address, delivered on a White House balcony with the monuments behind him, the president vowed not to permit another sanctuary for terrorism. "We will never again, never again allow Afghanistan to become a terrorist safe haven, because he is gone and we're going to make sure nothing else happens," he said. "It can't be a launching pad against the United States. We're going to see to it that won't happen." While celebrating al-Zawahri's killing, Republicans wasted little time on Monday night asserting that the president's withdrawal had endangered the country.

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.

A U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan this weekend killed Ayman al-Zawahri, who helped Osama bin Laden plot the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and ensured al-Qaida survived and spread in the years after. President Joe Biden on Monday announced the killing of al-Zawahri, delivering a significant counterterrorism win just 11 months after American troops left the country. A look at the al-Qaida leader, who evaded U.S. capture for 21 years after the suicide airliner attacks that in many ways changed America and its relations with the rest of the world. Americans who lived through the 9/11 attacks may not remember al-Zawahri's name, but many know his face more than two decades on: a man in glasses, slightly smiling, invariably shown in photos by the side of bin Laden as the two arranged the strike on the United States. An Egyptian, al-Zawahri was born June 19, 1951, to a comfortable family in a leafy, drowsy Cairo suburb.

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.

President Joe Biden announced Monday that the United States had killed Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of the world's most wanted terrorists and suspected mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks. In a televised address, Biden said the strike in Kabul, Afghanistan had been carried out on Saturday. "I gave the final approval to go get him," he said, adding that there had been no civilian casualties. "Justice has been delivered and this terrorist leader is no more," Biden said. A senior administration official said Zawahiri had been killed on the balcony of a house in Kabul in a drone strike, and that there had been no US boots on the ground in Afghanistan.

A senior administration official confirmed Zawahri's death to Fox News, saying the U.S. conducted a counterterrorism operation against "a significant al Qaeda target in Afghanistan." FILE - Osama bin Laden, left, and Ayman Al Zawahiri. "This is a significant step forward and is particularly meaningful to the 9/11 community as we continue our years-long battle for justice and accountability," 9/11 Justice said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital. "We urge President Biden to continue to stand with the 9/11 community and all those who seek justice by holding Saudi Arabia accountable for the 9/11 attacks," 9/11 Justice said. This image taken from a video issued by As-Sahab, al Qaeda's media branch, on April 5, 2022, shows al Qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahiri speaking.