Afghan Envoy to Tajikistan Mohammad Zahir Aghbar has claimed that family members of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the current interior minister of the country under the Taliban** government were killed by the US drone that ended the life of al-Zawahiri.
"According to the reports we have from Kabul, certain family members of the Haqqani group* were killed in the US strike. That house belonged to Haqqanis and they have left Kabul," Aghbar told India Today.
Aghbar further claimed that the Al-Qaeda leader's hide-out in the Afghan capital, a palatial bungalow, was owned by an individual who shares a close association with Haqqani.
The ambassador mentioned that after al-Zawahiri's death, all the top leaders of the Haqqani network, including Sirajuddin Haqqani have left their homes in Kabul and shifted to locations they deem safe from potential future US drone strikes.
The Haqqani network is an Islamist terror organization founded by Sirajuddin's father Jalaluddin Haqqani and was designated as a terror outfit by the US in 2012.
Sirajuddin Haqqani still carries a $10 million US bounty on his head.
The Afghan ambassador to Tajikistan insisted that al-Zawahiri's killing was proof that the current Taliban regime was sheltering terrorists in the country.
"The killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri is not important for the people of Afghanistan. What is important for us is for the international community to know that terrorism is growing in Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban," Aghbar added.
Al-Zawahiri and Osama Bin Laden were the masterminds of the 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the US.
While Bin Laden was killed in a special operation conducted by the US special forces in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad in 2011, al-Zawahiri was eliminated over the past weekend.
*Al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network are terrorist groups banned in Russia.
**Taliban is under UN sanctions for terrorist activities.