El-Sayed: Biden used al-Zawahiri strike for political gain
A 2022 essay by the Michigan Senate candidate argues the former president leveraged the killing to boost approval ratings before midterms.
By Chloe Martin ·
Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed accused Joe Biden of using the 2022 drone strike on Ayman al-Zawahiri to improve his political standing. El-Sayed, who is running for the U.S. Senate, published the criticism in an essay for The New Republic in 2022. The Washington Free Beacon first reported on the text this week.
Biden announced the death of al-Zawahiri on Aug. 1, 2022. The former president described al-Zawahiri as deeply involved in planning the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He noted that al-Zawahiri was responsible for the deaths of 2,977 people on American soil. Intelligence officials have long linked al-Zawahiri to other deadly assaults on Americans overseas.
El-Sayed called al-Zawahiri a craven terrorist in his essay. He wrote that the al-Qaeda leader died with the blood of innocent civilians on his hands. However, El-Sayed said the administration used the strike to flog War on Terror themes. He described the tactic as troubling for watching another American president resurrect a laggard term.
The essay argued that the strike offered the Biden administration a fig leaf. El-Sayed claimed it demonstrated that Afghanistan was not off limits for direct action against terrorist targets, even under Taliban control. He stated that the administration used the event to bolster approval ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
El-Sayed suggested that if Biden was serious about projecting strength in the Middle East, he should challenge autocratic regional leaders. He pointed to countries where the United States traditionally aligned with those leaders. The candidate has previously criticized other counterterrorism operations. He called the 2020 killing of Iranian leader Qassem Soleimani a move where one should not kick a rabid dog.
El-Sayed also characterized the 2011 death of Anwar al-Awlaki as an extrajudicial assassination. He has compared Donald Trump to Osama bin Laden, suggesting both inspired terrorism. Bin Laden was killed by American operators in May 2011. El-Sayed’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital on Wednesday.
Source: Fox News
