Al-Qaeda Leader Al-Zawahiri Killed In U.S. Drone Strike
Plus: Israeli airstrikes kill 10 people in Gaza, Lebanon's port blast 2nd-anniversary protests, university ban for Afghan women.
Hello readers. Welcome back to Inshallah, a newsletter about news from the Middle East delivered to your inbox every week.
I am Dario Sabaghi, ready to handpick for you the most newsworthy stories of the week. Subscribe to be up to date about the latest development in the Middle East. It's free.
Al-Qaeda leader killed in U.S. drone strike
U.S. President Joe Biden has confirmed that the U.S. has killed the leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in a drone strike in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.
He was killed in a counter-terrorism operation carried out by the CIA in the Afghan capital Kabul on Sunday.
Officials said Zawahiri was on the balcony of a safe house when the drone fired two missiles at him.
They added that other family members were present but unharmed, and only Zawahiri was killed in the attack.
A senior administration official told reporters that Zawahiri had been in hiding for years, and the operation to locate and kill him resulted from "careful patient and persistent" work by the counter-terrorism and intelligence community.
President Biden said he had given the final approval for the "precision strike" after months of planning.
Zawahiri and Osama Bin Laden plotted the 9/11 attacks together, and he was one of America's most wanted terrorists.
The 71-year-old Egyptian doctor took over al-Qaeda after the death of Bin Laden in 2011.
Israeli airstrikes kill 10 in Gaza, including a senior militant commander
Israel unleashed a wave of airstrikes in Gaza on Friday, August 5, killing at least ten people, including a senior militant, and wounding dozens, according to Palestinian officials.
Israel said it was targeting the Islamic Jihad militant group in response to an "imminent threat" following the arrest of another senior militant in the occupied West Bank earlier this week.
Palestinian militants launched a barrage of rockets hours later as air raid sirens wailed in central and southern Israel.
Islamic Jihad claimed to have fired 100 rockets.
Israel and Gaza's militant Hamas rulers have fought four wars and several smaller battles over the last 15 years at a staggering cost to the territory's 2 million Palestinian residents.
Lebanon's port blast 2nd-anniversary protests
Hundreds of people marched across Beirut to the port Thursday, August 4, to commemorate the second anniversary of the devastating explosion that took place there and to demand justice for the victims.
With grief and anger, the protesters demanded the resumption of the Lebanese investigation into the explosion, headed by Judge Tarek Bitar, which has been stalled for months by obstructive lawsuits lobbed against the judge by top politicians accused of wrongdoing in their handling of the ammonium nitrate risk.
Meanwhile, as the main group of protesters gathered at the port, four additional grain silos in the northern block collapsed two years to the day after the explosion that severely damaged them.
Taliban policies risk a de facto university ban for Afghan women
The Taliban's ban on girls studying at high schools will become a de facto ban on university degrees for women if it stays in place, a Taliban spokesperson and university officials have said.
Girls will not have the documents needed to enroll in higher education or the academic capacity to start university courses after nearly a year out of school.
Even if practical barriers to women entering higher education are removed in the coming months, authorities are also considering limiting them to degrees in healthcare and education, said a source with Taliban leadership ties.
Online classes and illegal underground schools have allowed some girls to keep studying, including in parts of the Taliban's deeply conservative southern heartland, but these efforts only reach a tiny minority.
Because secret schools are private initiatives, most have to charge fees to at least cover their costs, and the economic catastrophe that engulfed Afghanistan means few families can afford them.
That's all for this week. Thanks for reading Inshallah. Share this article and subscribe to be up to date about news from the Middle East every week. It's free.
About me
My name is Dario Sabaghi, a freelance journalist. I am interested in human rights and international news focusing on the MENA region.
Check out my work at dariosabaghi.com.
You can follow me on Twitter: @DarioSabaghi
Did I miss any important news from the Middle East? DM me on Twitter.
Cover photo: Google