BEIRUT — By the time two U.S. Hellfire missiles slammed into the balcony of a house in downtown Kabul early Sunday morning and killed Ayman al-Zawahri, the 71-year-old al-Qaida leader had become increasingly irrelevant to the organization he had once helped shape into one of the world’s most dangerous jihadi groups.
For his role as a chief architect of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Washington had placed a $25 million bounty on his head. It persisted in a frustratingly long manhunt that, after 21 years of false leads and near-misses, zeroed in on a house in the Shirpur district, one of the Afghan capital’s more upscale neighborhoods about a mile from the former American Embassy compound.
President Joe Biden said al-Zawahri’s killing delivered justice to “a vicious and determined killer.” Analysts, however, say his death constitutes little more than a symbolic blow to an al-Qaida that has changed much since he helped orchestrate the strike that killed 2,977 people — the deadliest foreign attack on American soil. Instead, the greatest impact from al-Zawahri’s demise may resonate in Afghanistan, which he drew into a destructive 20-year war with America, and which now could suffer anew amid concerns over al-Qaida’s entrenchment in the country and its close ties with the Taliban.
