The US claims to have killed the Al-Qaeda leader in Afghanistan.

Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri during an interview in October 2001. Photo: Reuters

In a televised address, Biden said the attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, took place last Saturday. “I have authorized the killing of him,” the White House chief said, adding that there were no civilian casualties.

"Justice has been served, and this terrorist leader is no longer alive," Biden declared.

He added that he hoped this would help "put an end to the grief" for the families of the victims who died in the attacks of September 11, 2001.

"I hope that this decisive action will provide another way to bring closure to this suffering," he stated.

A senior U.S. government official said Zawahiri was killed on the balcony of a house in Kabul in a drone strike, and that there was no U.S. military presence on the ground in Afghanistan.

The official also said that Zawahiri's presence in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, was a "clear violation" of the agreement the Taliban signed with the US in Doha in 2020, paving the way for the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

This was the first known attack by the United States targeting an Al-Qaeda location in Afghanistan since U.S. forces withdrew from the country on August 31, 2021.

Zawahiri, an Egyptian doctor born and raised in a wealthy family in Cairo, later turned to violent extremism and has been in hiding for the past 20 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States.

He took over the Al-Qaeda group after Osama bin Laden was killed by US special forces in 2011, and a $25 million reward was offered for his capture.

In recent years, there have been several rumors about Zawahiri's death, and it has long been reported that he was in poor health.