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Al Qaeda leader Zawahiri killed in US drone strike in Afghanistan
Saturday 6 August 2022, by
Al Qaeda leader Zawahiri killed in US drone strike in Afghanistan: Biden
Reuters | Agencies
Published August 2, 2022
Photo: Osama bin Laden sits with his adviser Ayman al-Zawahiri during an interview with journalist Hamid Mir (not pictured), November 10, 2001. - Reuters
Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a US strike in Afghanistan over the weekend, American President Joe Biden said on Monday.
Zawahiri, an Egyptian surgeon who had a $25 million bounty on his head, helped coordinate the Sept 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
US officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the United States carried out a drone strike in the Afghan capital Kabul on Sunday morning at 6:18am local time.
“Now justice has been delivered, and this terrorist leader is no more,” Biden said in remarks from the White House. “We never back down.”
Read: Al Qaeda, IS gaining strength in Afghanistan: UNSC report
US intelligence determined with “high confidence” that the man killed was Zawahiri, a senior administration official told reporters. No other casualties occurred.
“Zawahiri continued to pose an active threat to US persons, interests and national security,” the official said on a conference call. “His death deals a significant blow to al Qaeda and will degrade the group’s ability to operate.”
There were rumors of Zawahiri’s death several times in recent years, and he was long reported to have been in poor health.
His death raises questions about whether Zawahiri received sanctuary from the Taliban following their takeover of Kabul in August 2021. The official said senior Taliban officials were aware of his presence in the city.
The drone attack is the first known US strike inside Afghanistan since US troops and diplomats left the country in August 2021.
In a statement, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed that a strike took place and strongly condemned it, calling it a violation of “international principles.”
The senior US official said finding Zawahiri was the result of persistent counterterrorism work. The United States identified this year that Zawahiri’s wife, daughter and her children had relocated to a safe house in Kabul, then identified that Zawahiri was there as well, the official said.
“Once Zawahiri arrived at the location, we are not aware of him ever leaving the safe house,” the official said. He was identified multiple times on the balcony, where he was ultimately struck. He continued to produce videos from the house and some may be released after his death, the official said.
In the last few weeks, Biden convened officials to scrutinise the intelligence. He was updated throughout May and June and was briefed on July 1 on a proposed operation by intelligence leaders. On July 25, he received an updated report and authorised the strike once an opportunity was available.
A loud explosion echoed through Kabul early Sunday morning.
“A house was hit by a rocket in Sherpoor. There were no casualties as the house was empty,” Abdul Nafi Takor, spokesman of the interior ministry, said earlier.
One Taliban source, requesting anonymity, said there had been reports of at least one drone flying over Kabul that morning.
With other senior al Qaeda members, Zawahiri is believed to have plotted the October 12, 2000, attack on the USS Cole naval vessel in Yemen which killed 17 US sailors and injured more than 30 others, the Rewards for Justice website said.
He was indicted in the United States for his role in the August 7, 1998, bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people and wounded more than 5,000 others.
Both bin laden and Zawahiri eluded capture when US-led forces toppled Afghanistan’s Taliban government in late 2001 following the Sept 11 attacks on the United States.
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Source: https://www.dawn.com/news/1703177/drone-that-hit-ayman-al-zawahiri-flew-from-kyrgyzstan-reports
Drone that hit Ayman al Zawahiri flew from Kyrgyzstan: reports
Anwar Iqbal
Published August 4, 2022 Updated 3 days ago
WASHINGTON: The American drone that eliminated Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri in Kabul was possibly launched from an airbase in Kyrgyzstan, some US media reports claimed on Wednesday.
The reports claimed that the attack was launched from Ganci Airbase, a US transit facility at Manas in northern Kyrgyzstan.
According to the US Department of Defence, Ganci is a former American military base in Kyrgyzstan, near the Bishkek international airport. It was operated by the US Air Force, which handed it over to the Kyrgyz military in June 2014.
The US administration, however, is still refusing to disclose where the drone take-off from and what route it used. The Department of Defence only issued a brief statement, saying: “Zawahiri was killed in an over-the-horizon operation in downtown Kabul, where he was residing as a guest of the Taliban. The house was struck by two Hellfires missiles in a precision, counterterrorism operation at 6:18am Kabul time on Sunday.”
The National Public Radio (NPR), America’s largest radio news network, noted that US officials were not saying where they launched the drone from, “but the US no longer has any military bases in the immediate region, suggesting the aircraft may have flown a long distance before reaching its target”.
Michael Kugelman, a scholar of South Asian affairs at the Wilson Center, Washington, noted that the drone strike has generated “lots of discussion” in the US on “Pakistan’s possible role” in the raid.
“I wouldn’t overstate its role, but also would take with some grains of salt the contention that there was no role at all.”
Mr Kugelman focused his attention on two possible forms of support: airspace and intelligence. “The geography doesn’t lie. If this drone was launched from a US base in the Gulf, it wouldn’t be able to fly over Iran. Flying over Central Asia is circuitous and hard to pull off if you’re undertaking a rapid operation,” he wrote.
“This leaves the Pakistani airspace as the most desirable option for intelligence support and US officials have indicated the planning and surveillance for this operation took months.”
“Could it do that all alone, with no on-ground presence?” he asked, adding that if not Pakistan, “some renegade Taliban members might have supplied that information to the US”.
But Mr Kugelman does not rule out the possibility of Afghanistan’s Central Asian neighbours providing that support to the US.
A BBC report explored the possibility of the CIA conducting the drone strike without any support from Afghanistan’s neighbours.
“When a missile is launched from a drone, a weapons operator — sometimes sitting in an air-conditioned control room as far away as the continental US — sees a live video stream of the target, which the drone’s camera sensors feedback via satellite,” the report pointed out.
“Using a set of targeting brackets on the screen, the camera operator is then able to lock up the target and point a laser at it. Once the missile is fired, it follows the path of that laser until striking the target.”
The report also noted that the US used drone-fired Hellfires air-to-surface missile that has become a fixture of US counter-terrorism operations overseas in the decades since the 11 September 2001 attacks.
“The missile can be fired from a variety of platforms, including helicopters, ground vehicles, ships and fixed wing aircraft — or, in Zawahiri’s case, from an unmanned drone.”
Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2022
