American travellers warned of reprisals

WASHINGTON: The US State Department has warned all Americans travelling abroad they may face an increased risk of violence after US forces killed al-Qa’ida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone strike.

His death over the weekend dealt the biggest blow to alQa’ida – the terror group behind the 9/11 attacks on the US – since the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011.

Following the strike, the State Department urged US citizens to “maintain a high level of vigilance and practice good situational awareness when travelling abroad”.

“Current information suggests terrorist organisations continue to plan attacks against US interests in multiple regions across the globe,” the department said. “These attacks may employ a wide variety of tactics including suicide operations, assassinations, kidnappings, hijackings and bombings.”

A senior official in the Biden administration said the 71-year-old Egyptian jihadist (pictured) was on the balcony of a three-storey house in the Afghan capital when he was targeted with two Hellfire missiles just after dawn on Sunday.

It was the first known “over-the-horizon” strike by the US on a target in Afghanistan since Washington withdrew its forces from the country on August 31 last year, days after the Taliban swept back to power.

The Taliban condemned the drone strike, but made no mention of casualties nor did they name Zawahiri.

His death will not affect the operations of the terror group’s affiliates across the world, but opens the way for a potentially troubled succession process.

“He accepted major new players in the al-Qa’ida network,” said Hans-Jakob Schindler, director of the NGO Counter-Extremism Project and a former UN adviser.

“So it is a blow to al-Qa’ida,” he said. But “it’s not going to stop anything”.

The most likely successors are Egyptians Saif al-Adel and Abu Abd al-Karim al-Masri.