Reports confirmed that the drone that killed Al Qaeda chief Ayman-al-Zawhiri on July 31 in Kabul was launched from a base in Kyrgyzstan.
According to sources, the launch was attacked using Ganci airbase, a US transit facility located near Manas in northern Kyrgyzstan.
According to the US Department of Defense, Ganci is a former military airbase near Kyrgyzstan’s international airport in Bishkek.Until June 2014, the US Air Force was in charge of the airbase before they handed it over to the Krgyz military.
The route and exact location of the launch have not been disclosed by the US administration. The department of defence stated, “Zawahiri was killed in an over-the-horizon operation in downtown Kabul, where he was residing as a guest of the Taliban. The house was struck by two Hellfire missiles in a precision counterterrorism operation at 6:18am Kabul time on Sunday.”
The US stated that the Haqqani Network terror outfit was aware of Ayman’s presence in Kabul.
A worldwide alert has also been issued by the US department after the death of Ayman.
Al-Zawahiri was the mastermind behind the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. He was a surgeon from Egypt, and he was also Osama Bin Laden’s physician. Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant organisation Al-Qaeda. He was hunted down by the US in Jalalabad, Pakistan. After his death, Zewaahiri became the face of the group and had a reward of USD 25 million on his head.
Ayman took control of Islamic Jihad in Egypt in 1993 and rose to prominence in the mid-1990s movement to topple the government and establish a strict Islamic state. He was discovered to have participated in the murder of more than 1,200 Egyptians.