Al Qaeda releases leader Al-Zawahiri’s video who was believed dead.
An undated FBI Most Wanted poster depicts Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who, according to American sources, was killed in a CIA drone strike in Afghanistan over the weekend.
Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was thought to have been killed in a U.S. raid in August 2022, is reported to have voiced a 35-minute audio that Al Qaeda has released, according to the SITE intelligence group on Friday.
The transcription did not make it apparent when the recording could have been produced, and the recording was undated.
The extremist organisation suffered its greatest setback since the death of its founder, Osama bin Laden, in 2011 when Zawahiri was assassinated in an American attack in Afghanistan.
An operation to find and kill Zawahiri, who had been hiding for years, was the result of “careful, patient, and persistent” work by the counterterrorism and intelligence community, according to a senior U.S. government official.
Al Qaeda has not chosen a replacement. Experts, however, believe that Saif al-Adel, a high-ranking Al Qaeda member who is a secretive and low-key former Egyptian special forces officer, is the front-runner.
A reward of up to $10 million is being offered by the US for information that results in his capture.
