British MI6 agent helped US kill al-Qaeda leader behind 9/11 attacks in missile strike

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An MI6 agent based in Afghanistan has provided information to help locate 71-year-old al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. He was assassinated in a CIA drone strike on Sunday

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A British spy played a key role in the assassination of al-Qaeda leader and mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Ayman al-Zawahiri, we can reveal.

An Afghanistan-based MI6 agent provided information to help locate Zawahiri, who was assassinated in a CIA drone strike on Sunday.

The drone launched two Hellfire missiles which killed the 71-year-old as he stood on the balcony of a shelter in the capital of Aghanistan, Kabul.

It was the home of a senior Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani, a senior US intelligence official said.

A security source said: 'The MI6 agent played a key role and is believed to have helped identify Zawahiri at the location where he was killed.'

Aimen Dean said our agent's information will have been invaluable (

Picture:

Channel 4)

It is understood that information from our ghost would have helped formulate the plan of attack, the source said.

The agent has been providing intelligence to British spies and Afghan security services since before the Taliban takeover.

The FBI had offered £20 million for 'information leading to the arrest or conviction' of terrorist leader Zawahiri, who plotted the September 11 attacks in the US with Osama bin Laden.

Nearly 3,000 people died in the 2001 attacks when hijackers crashed jetliners into New York's World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon.