On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden announced that al-Qaeda main and 9/11 mastermind No 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri had been killed in a drone hit in Kabul, Afghanistan. The news took no time to make the headlines plus Twitter trends.
As there is certainly currently zero on-ground (military and/or intelligence) US presence in Afghanistan, it is really worth looking into how this happened.
Who was Zawahiri?
Ayman al-Zawahiri, 71, had been a senior official of al-Qaeda considering that 1998. In 2011, this individual took charge because the chief of al-Qaeda after the death of Osama bin Laden.
This individual was listed by the united states as Most Wanted Terrorist (with a bounty of $25 million for any information resulting in his conviction) following the attacks of September 11, 2001, as he along with bin Packed masterminded the Double Towers attacks and several other terrorist routines.
He previously been a focus on of US intelligence for two decades when he or she, according to Biden, has been finally struck in the balcony of a secure house about a distance from embassies along with other government offices in the Sherpur neighborhood associated with Kabul.
Do he die in the drone attack?
The circumstances surrouding the claimed death from the al-Qaeda chief are usually mysterious – instead of for the first time.
In August 08, CBS News key foreign-affairs correspondent Lara Logan reported that “Ayman al-Zawahiri – the second most powerful leader in al-Qaeda and Osama rubbish bin Laden’s No 2 – may be significantly wounded and possibly deceased. ”
Then, in Nov 2020, he had been “killed” for the 2nd time when Arab Information reported that “Egyptian nationwide Ayman al-Zawahiri, 69, has died within Afghanistan, likely of natural causes. ” Yet Zawahiri made an appearance in a video information after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, launched on September eleven, 2021.
So after this individual supposedly died for the third time, in a drone strike on the safe house in Kabul last Sunday morning, there was misunderstandings among many.
For example , right after the attack, the former head of the National Directorate of Security in Afghanistan, Rahmatullah Nabil, tweeted that the drone strike on July 31 was likely portion of “an American hit on IS-K” (Islamic State – Khorasan Province) at multiple locations in Kabul.
Afterwards, former Afghan vice-president Amrullah Saleh tweeted that the creating had been struck by Pakistan’s air push at the behest of the country’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
It was not clear what actually happened till Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed by way of a tweet that it was an US drone attack, and it was shortly afterward that Biden claimed in an eight-minute video briefing the fact that attack had been performed by the US.
But then remarks from a White House recognized further muddied the particular waters. In a declaration, John Kirby, Nationwide Security Council planner for strategic marketing communications, stated that ALL OF US officials did not have DNA confirmation associated with Zawahiri’s death, but authorities had gathered the evidence of his demise through “visual and other means. ”
He added this “led us towards the certainty before this was the guy, and that led us to the conclusion after, with a high degree of confidence, that he was no more. ”
So it can be concluded that confirmation of his death was based on non-DNA proof in which there was a “high degree of self-confidence. ”
Was he even in Afghanistan?
First, let’s assume that the Taliban had and still have an alliance along with al-Qaeda. If so, al-Qaeda would never want to harm the image of its friend, while Afghanistan under the Taliban has been below close observation of the world. Therefore , al-Qaeda would be unlikely to maintain a presence within Afghanistan, thereby financing credence to suspicions that the Taliban had been making it a secure haven for terrorists.
2nd, Afghanistan had managed foreign intelligence firms for the past two decades plus spies from all around the world had been there for long. It was just a year ago that the US plus NATO left Afghanistan, and hence it is not difficult to believe that some may still be working generally there secretly. If so, the existence of high-ranked al-Qaeda officials in Afghanistan is fairly unlikely.
Indeed, senior Taliban officials including acting interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani have claimed many times that there is zero presence associated with al-Qaeda, its frontrunners, or activities in the land.
ALL OF US ambitions behind the particular drone attack
Whether the target had been achieved or not, presently there may exist some other major but cryptic objectives of the ALL OF US behind this strike.
In retaliation for their pullout, the Americans may have desired:
- To produce grievances between the Taliban and their neighbors and to tell the planet that the reason the US over and over again criticized the particular Taliban for making Afghanistan a safe haven for terrorist organizations around the globe was valid.
- To generate disagreement and turmoil inside the regime and to bring Taliban officials face-to-face so they would certainly blame one another pertaining to exposing Zawahiri’s existence in Kabul.
- To show the world that the US is usually capable of conducting “over-the-horizon attacks” whenever and wherever it wants without any presence on a lawn, as Biden also emphasized this whilst he was telling the media about Zawahiri’s death upon Tuesday.
Role of Pakistan?
Some observers suggested the jingle attack was executed using Pakistan’s airspace.
Although it is true that Pakistan’s army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, was in talks using the International Monetary Fund recently, and that he had also talked with all the commander of US Central Command (CENTCOM), General Michael Kurilla, simply 48 hours prior to the drone strike, a Pakistani government official later insisted that “the eliminating of Ayman al-Zawahiri is an internal matter of Afghanistan. Simply no role of any kind of sort [was] played by Pakistan. ”
He added that the Americans “have many options in the region. Nevertheless , it [the drone] didn’t voyage from Pakistan or through its airspace. ”
The aftermath
Keeping the ground realities apart, this drone hit may further spoil US-Afghanistan relations later on. Senior US officials such as Admin of State Antony Blinken have suggested the attack was obviously a violation of the Doha agreement. The Taliban spokesman reckoned exactly the same. So it seems the 2 parties are in the paradoxical situation.
The Taliban’s image on the worldwide stage may also were damaged, as the globe sees that anyone at any moment can hold out an attack from “over the horizon. ” Thus the particular regime’s quest for international recognition may be jeapordized by a perception that the Taliban are not effective at enforcing necessary safety.
And that, not making the entire world safe from al-Qaeda, may have been Washington’s actual motive.
Follow Syed Attaullah Shah on Twitter @SyedAttaullah96 .