MembersTerror Chiefs Like Al-Zawahiri Are Targets, How Come Others Are Not?

The Biden administration says the US, and the world, is much safer, now that the Al-Qaeda terror chief has been taken out. They would surely agree then, would they not, that Israel and the world would be much safer if the Hamas terror chief were taken out too?

| Topics: Double Standard, Fighting Terror
Bedfellows: Hamas Chief Ismail Haniyeh greets his sponsor, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei Photo: JNS/Iran Times via Wikimedia Commons

What’s the difference between Ayman al-Zawahiri and Ismail Haniyeh? Some would say the number of people whose murders can be laid at their personal doorsteps. That’s debatable.

This isn’t: Haniyeh’s victims, by deliberate choice, are Jews.

Today, “everyone” knows who al-Zawahiri is – or was. His history goes something like this:

An Egyptian medical doctor, he was involved from his youth with numerous Islamist groups, and was tried for playing a part in the 1981 assassination of his country’s president, Anwar al-Sadat. He spent three years in prison.

In the late 90s – after perpetrating numerous savage acts of terror, the Egyptian joined the Saudi Osama bin Laden in the leadership of Al-Qaeda, and was the brains behind the 9/11 attack. When bin Laden was killed by US special forces in 2011, al-Zawahiri took command.

This week, on August 2, 2022, after 11 years heading Al-Qaeda, a triumphant  US President Joe Biden proclaimed the assassination of al-Zawahiri. “If you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you, and take you out. … No matter how long...

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