Is Ayman al-Zawahiri still alive? Nearly six months after top Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed by the United States, the terrorist group released a video on Friday in which he can be seen, Reuters reported. The US had claimed that its forces had killed al-Zawahiri in a drone strike in Afghanistan in early July this year. Even US President Joe Biden released a video in which he praised the efforts of the forces involved in the assassination operation.
In a major development, the news agency cited SITE intelligence group as saying that there was no date or time in the 35-minute video released by the terror outfit which proved the exact date of recording. Furthermore, the report claims that the transcript also does not clearly indicate the time frame when it could have been created.
Biden claimed that his army killed the terrorist leader in July
Significantly, Al-Zawahiri was the main conspirator of the 9/11 attack which took the lives of thousands of innocent people in America.
Several US intelligence agencies, including the FBI, claimed that al-Zawahiri had been living in Pakistan since his predecessor, Osama bin Laden, was killed in Abbottabad. On several occasions the media reported about his presence in Pakistan. However, after the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021, he moved to Kabul to lead the terror outfit.
Earlier in July this year, America had claimed that its army had killed Zawahiri from Afghanistan. While the US military did not comment on the latest development, experts familiar with the operation have labeled the video as “outdated”.
Who was al-Zawahiri?
An Egyptian, al-Zawahiri was born on June 19, 1951, into a comfortable family in a lush suburb of Cairo. Religiously observant since boyhood, he immersed himself in a violent branch of Sunni Islamic revival that sought to replace the governments of Egypt and other Arab countries with a stricter interpretation of Islamic rule.
Al-Zawahiri worked as an eye surgeon as a young adult, but also traveled around Central Asia and the Middle East, witnessing the Afghans’ war against the Soviet occupiers in that country, and the young Saudis Osama bin Laden and Met with other Arab militants who were rallying to help oust Afghanistan. Soviet soldier.
He was one of hundreds of militants captured and tortured in an Egyptian prison after the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat by Islamic fundamentalists. Biographers say the experience radicalized him. Seven years later, al-Zawahiri was present when bin Laden founded al-Qaeda.
Al-Zawahiri merged his Egyptian militant group with Al-Qaeda. He brought to al-Qaeda organizational skills and experience – having gone underground in Egypt, escorted by Egyptian intelligence – which allowed al-Qaeda to organize cells of followers and carry out attacks around the world.
(with inputs from AP)