Welcome to the beat. I am Ari Melbert. We have several stories for you tonight, but we begin with

continuing coverage of this breaking news. United States reporting on this strike, killing

al-Qaeda terrorist leader, Amen al-Zohari in Afghanistan. This occurred over the weekend. The news

is breaking, confirmed now. Nicole Wallace here, leading our coverage.

And I can tell you what you may know, the president will be addressing the nation in about 90 minutes.

The White House saying President Biden will speak out on this.

It is a fast-moving, late-breaking story.

And for that reason, we go directly.

To some of our experts on this, NBC chief White House correspondent,

Kristen Welker, and retired four-star Army General Barry McCaffrey.

Kristen, what are we learning from the White House about something that apparently already

occurred, but as the way these things go down, is sort of breaking news right now tonight?

It certainly is. First, we learned that President Biden was going to speak at

7.30 Eastern time to announce an operation against a senior al-Qaeda leader. And based on conversations

with two sources familiar with the matter, my colleague Kandalayan and I, have been able to

confirm that that leader was Iman al-Zawarhi,

who is the leader of al-Qaeda. He took over after Osama bin Laden was killed. And this is significant.

This was a raid that was conducted over the weekend, Ari. And let me just read you something that

the White House released, which is over the weekend, the United States conducted a counterterrorism operation against a significant al-Qaeda target

in Afghanistan.

The operation was successful and there were no civilian casualties.

So let's just take a step back and think about how we got here.

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