The killing of al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri has caused a diplomatic furore, with the US and the Taliban hitting out at each other over the incident. Speaking after the assassination, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Taliban "grossly" violated the Doha Agreement by hosting and sheltering Zawahiri.
The Taliban, on their end, described the US operation as a clear violation of international principles. "Such actions are a repetition of the failed experiences of the past 20 years and are against the interests of the United States of America, Afghanistan and the region," the spokesman was quoted as saying by the BBC.
In a series of tweets, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said, "An airstrike was carried out on a residential house in Sherpur area of Kabul city on July 31." He said, "The nature of the incident was not apparent at first", but the security and intelligence services of the Islamic Emirate investigated the incident and "initial findings determined that the strike was carried out by an American drone".
Who was Zawahiri?
Zawahiri made his public debut as a Muslim militant when he was in prison for his involvement in the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
He spent three years in prison after Sadat's assassination and claimed he was tortured while in detention. After his release, he made his way to Pakistan, where he treated wounded mujahideen fighters who fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
That was when he met bin Laden and found a common cause, the CNN reported. "We are working with brother bin Laden," he said in announcing the merger of his terror group, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, with al-Qaeda in May 1998. "We know him for more than 10 years now. We fought with him here in Afghanistan," he had said. Together, the two terror leaders signed a fatwa, or declaration: "The judgment to kill and fight Americans and their allies, whether civilians or military, is an obligation for every Muslim."
On the run after 9/11, Zawahiri rebuilt al-Qaeda leadership in the Afghan-Pakistan border region and was the supreme leader over branches in Iraq, Asia, Yemen and beyond. With a credo of targeting near and far enemies, al-Qaeda after 9/11 carried out years of unrelenting attacks: in Bali, Mombasa, Riyadh, Jakarta, Istanbul, Madrid, London and beyond.
Attacks that killed 52 people in London in 2005 were among al-Qaeda's last devastating attacks in the West, as drone strikes, counterterror raids and missiles launched by the US, and others killed al-Qaeda-affiliated fighters and shattered parts of the network.
-Inputs from agencies