Taliban say they have not found body of Al-Qaeda leader Al-Zawahiri
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The Taliban said they are continuing their investigations.
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The home where Ayman al-Zawahiri was reportedly killed (Twitter)
The Taliban have not yet found Ayman Al-Zawahiri's body and are continuing investigations, the Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said on Thursday, after the United States said they killed the Al-Qaeda leader in an airstrike in Kabul at the end of last month.
The United States claimed to have killed Al-Zawahiri with a drone missile while he was standing on a balcony at his hideout in July, US officials said. The strike dealt "a significant blow to Al-Qaeda and will degrade the group's ability to operate," a senior administration official told reporters earlier this month.
Read: How exactly was Al-Qaeda's Zawahiri killed?
Earlier this month, US President Joe Biden announced that the United States had killed Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri, a suspected mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
A senior administration official said Al-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.
The official said that Al-Zawahiri's presence in the Afghan capital Kabul was a "clear violation" of a deal the Taliban had signed with the US in Doha in 2020 that paved the way for the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Diplomatic sources revealed on the same day to Al Mayadeen that the Taliban movement has confirmed the killing of the leader of Al-Qaeda terrorist organization, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, and reliable witnesses in the movement confirmed that they saw his body.
However, the sources said Al-Zawahiri was not killed in the way Washington reported, indicating that the Al-Qaeda chief was killed as a result of a mysterious explosion that was not and cannot be disclosed.
![In a 2021 interview with Frontline by former US special representative James Jeffrey, he says he had "engaged with [HTS] via backchannels while serving in President Trump’s State Department. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Batoul Chamas)](https://alpha-en-media.almayadeen.net/media/image/2024/12/21/b4a69f2e-8682-43e4-9d37-49482b304ab3/3.png?v=2&format=webp "In a 2021 interview with Frontline by former US special representative James Jeffrey, he says he had \"engaged with [HTS] via backchannels while serving in President Trump’s State Department. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Batoul Chamas)")
