WASHINGTON – The State Department alerted its citizens on Tuesday to the possibility that they may become the target of Al Qaeda sympathizers in retaliation after the death over the weekend of the group’s leader, Ayman al Zawahiri, in a anti-terrorist operation.
In a statement, the department headed by Antony Blinken indicated that after Al Zawahiri’s death, US facilities, personnel and citizens may be at greater risk, and advised maintain a high state of alert when traveling abroad.
Given this situation, the US government chose to update its World Alert, a guide that contains information about terrorist activity and violence abroad, as well as as recommendations on how to act in the event of possible contingencies.
Among the possible risks faced by US citizens, the State Department cited suicide operations, assassinations, s kidnappings and bomb attacks.
Al Zawahiri was assassinated on Sunday morning in a residence in Kabul, specifically at 6: 18 am local time, when he was on the balcony of the residence where he was staying and a drone fired two Hellfire missiles at him.
According to the White House, only the Al Qaeda leader was killed in the operation, and not there was no collateral damage, not even the members of his family who were staying with him, something that the country’s president himself, Joe Biden, had insisted on several times and that he had set as one of the conditions to proceed with the attack.