America’s Hellfire attack shows Taliban still shelter terrorists
Ayman al-Zawahiri had been given freedom of movement after moving to the safe house where he was killed.
The Taliban’s co-operation with other jihadist movements in Afghanistan has been laid bare after the killing of al-Qa’ida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul.
Zawahiri, 71, was assassinated as he stood on the balcony of a house near the centre of the Afghan capital, Kabul, early on Sunday. He was hit by a Hellfire “Ninja” R9X missile fired from a drone by the CIA, Washington officials said on Tuesday.
The missile, which has no explosive charge but destroys its target with swiftly rotating blades, is the new weapon of choice for killing people without causing “collateral damage”. In this case, that meant Zawahiri’s family, who had been allowed to move with him to Kabul by the Taliban leadership.
After US forces withdrew from Afghanistan last year and the country fell to the Taliban, Zawahiri moved first to Helmand province and then to Kabul, the US officials said. The Taliban had promised during negotiations in Qatar with Donald Trump’s administration to sever its ties with al-Qa’ida. And Zawahiri had a $US25m bounty on his head.
In an address to the nation on Monday night after the killing was confirmed, President Joe Biden told Americans that the strike showed the US could still suppress violent jihadist terrorist groups without recourse to the big interventions made under George W Bush and Barack Obama.
However, it has become clear that the Taliban has allowed al-Qa’ida, along with numerous offshoots dedicated to the overthrow of governments across the Middle East and South Asia, to regroup in Afghanistan after the US withdrew. “Since August, members of al-Qa’ida have been a lot more visible,” a source close to the Taliban leadership said. “Their activities are not just visible in Kabul but in Kunar, Paktika and Khost.”
The source said Zawahiri had been given “freedom of movement” after moving to the safe house where he was killed. It belonged to the Haqqani Network, one of the most radical of the Taliban factions, which has ties to al-Qa’ida dating back to the 1980. Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the network, is the interior minister in the Taliban government.
Zawahiri was even planning to travel abroad, the source said. “My information is that Ayman al-Zawahiri did not move to this house on the orders of the Taliban, it was a choice he made himself. He wanted to come here, he was enjoying his freedom. He was overconfident – one year since the Taliban took control and there have been no air strikes.
“He was catching up with old friends. Orders from Taliban leadership made it clear that he could travel and enjoy his freedom but he was not to plan anything on Afghan soil. If he wanted to do that, he had to leave.”
In his speech from the White House, made while still suffering the effects of Covid-19, Mr Biden celebrated the strike on Zawahiri as a success, echoing phrases used by Mr Obama and Mr Trump about the killings of Osama bin Laden, the previous leader of al-Qa’ida, and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Islamic State’s “caliph”. He referred to Zawahiri’s role in the events of September 11, 2001, when he was Bin Laden’s deputy, and other attacks on US targets.
Mr Biden used the strike to justify his decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan, which led to the swift fall of the Western-backed government last August. The sudden and chaotic reversal of US policy has been held against him by his Republican opponents as evidence of weakness on national security. Mr Biden and his advisers have sought to argue he can have the same effect in mitigating the threat of terrorism and supporting US allies from “over the horizon”, using technology, drones and surveillance instead of risking the lives of US soldiers.
Mr Biden promised Afghanistan would “never again be a terrorist safe haven” or a “launching pad” for attacks against the US. However, analysts and Afghan exiles have warned that al-Qa’ida is just one of a plethora of jihadist groups ensconced in Afghanistan.
The most likely successor to Zawahiri is thought to be al-Qa’ida’s deputy leader Saif al-Adel, 62, who like Zawahiri is of Egyptian origin. He has spent most of the past two decades living in Iran, where he fled the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
The Times