How CIA identified and killed Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri?

The US has killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone strike in Afghanistan. US President Joe Biden has confirmed this. On Sunday, America's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) conducted an anti-terrorist operation in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. In this al-Zawahiri died.

Biden said, "Zawahiri's hands were stained with the blood of murder and violence against American citizens. Now the people have got justice and this terrorist leader is no longer alive."

Officials say that Zawahiri was in the balcony of a safe house when two missiles were fired from the drone. US officials say Zawahiri's family members were also in the house, but no one was hurt.

This year, officials identified Zawahiri's family (his wife, daughter, and sons) as having moved to a safe house in Kabul, and later identified Zawahiri at the same location.

For several months, intelligence officials grew confident that they had correctly identified Zawahiri at the Kabul safe house, and in early April began briefing senior administration officials. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan later briefed President Joe Biden.

"We were able to build a pattern of life through multiple independent sources of information to inform the operation," the official said.

Once Zawahiri arrived at the Kabul safe house, officials didn't realize he had left her and identified him on his balcony, where they eventually beat him, multiple times, the official said.

Officials investigated the construction and nature of the safe house and screened its occupants to ensure that the United States could confidently conduct an operation to kill Zawahiri without threatening the building's structural integrity and minimizing the risk to civilians and Zawahiri's family, the official said.

In recent weeks, the president has called meetings with key advisers and cabinet members to review intelligence and assess the best course of action. On July 1, members of his cabinet, including CIA Director William Burns, briefed Biden on a proposed operation in the White House Situation Room.

Biden “asked detailed questions about what we knew and how we knew it” and closely examined a model of the safe house that the intelligence community had built and brought to the meeting.

He asked about lighting, weather, construction materials and other factors that could affect the success of the operation, the official said. The president also requested an analysis of the possible ramifications of a strike in Kabul.

• Ayman al -Zawahiri was an Egyptian doctor who later joined Islamic extremism.

• Al-Zawahiri was also imprisoned in Egypt in the 1980s for his involvement in Islamic extremism.

• After his release from prison went to Afghanistan and came with Osama bin Laden.

• Zawahiri remained in command of al-Qaeda after Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011.

• Zawahiri is believed to be the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.

The US will see the killing of al-Zawahiri as a victory. Only last year, America withdrew its sack-bed from Afghanistan without achieving any concrete target. But al-Zawahiri had become comparatively weak. Now there was no question of al-Qaeda in front of Islamic State.

Of course a new al-Qaeda leader would emerge, but al-Zawahiri was no longer in influence compared to its predecessor. The killing of al-Zawahiri in Kabul also shows the importance of Afghanistan.

With the arrival of the Taliban, Islamic groups can get a safe haven here. But America has also shown that even though it is not on the ground, it can attack from afar.

Last year, President Biden withdrew all US troops from Afghanistan. It's been exactly a year since the withdrawal of American troops, and that's when al-Zawahiri was approved by Biden to be executed.

In 2020, the Taliban signed a peace deal with the US, in which it promised that it would not give shelter to al-Qaeda in their country. He had spoken of not giving shelter to any extremist group.

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