Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri actually made himself a relatively soft target for the CIA. Obviously feeling safe inside the Taliban-ruled country, his daily habits, particularly his fondness for spending time on his balcony, became quite easy to predict.
At 6:18 a.m. local time on Sunday, as the terrorist sat on the balcony of his safe house, which was located in the Sherpur neighborhood of Kabul, the CIA sent two hellfire missiles his way, according to CNN.
PBS News reported that al-Zawahiri’s family had come to Afghanistan last year after the fall of Kabul handed control of the country back to the Taliban. The family moved into the home with the support of the Haqqani Taliban.
Although it’s unclear when al-Zawahiri arrived, according to PBS, the CIA had been tracking his movements for months and had put together “a pattern of life,” an outline of his typical activities on any given day.
A senior U.S. administration official told the media outlet that the terrorist leader had been identified on “multiple occasions, for sustained periods of time” on his balcony.
The official added that “multiple streams of intelligence” confirmed the individual they’d been tracking was indeed al-Zawahiri.
The CIA briefed “two senior national security officials” in early April and national security adviser Jake Sullivan briefed the president soon afterward, PBS reported. And after vetting the intelligence, officials met with Biden on July 1 in the White House Situation Room.
Mindful of the Pentagon’s accidental killing of 10 Afghan civilians in an Aug. 29 drone strike last year, the president was very concerned about avoiding collateral damage. For that reason, CIA officials had brought along a small-scale model of the home and explained that a “tailored precision” strike would minimize additional casualties.
Biden received an additional briefing on July 25 and authorized the strike “as soon as an opportunity was available.”
Though the strike occurred on Sunday morning, officials waited 36 hours before breaking the news to monitor the actions of the Taliban. PBS reported, “[T]hey watched the Haqqani Taliban network restrict access to the safe house and relocate the dead al-Qaida leader’s family. U.S. officials interpreted that as the Taliban trying to conceal the fact they had harbored al-Zawahiri.”
That one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, a man with a $25 million bounty on his head, felt comfortable enough to live openly in Kabul tells us that Afghanistan has become a sanctuary for terrorists just as we’d feared.
A United Nations Security Council assessment published in January concluded that “Terrorist groups enjoy greater freedom in Afghanistan than at any time in recent history.” Similarly, The Council on Foreign Relations reported in April that the terrorist presence in Afghanistan had doubled since the U.S. troop withdrawal.
So when the President, his minions, and the media boast about taking out the al-Qaeda leader, portraying it as evidence that U.S. “over-the-horizon” counterterrorism works, bear in mind the failed terrorist state Biden allowed Afghanistan to become. Also remember this is just one of the many ways his disastrous decision made the world a more dangerous place.
A previous version of this article appeared on The Western Journal.
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One can only live in spider holes and caves for so long before one’s mental state needs some positive readjustment. Thus, the morning routine attempts to enjoy life. Kind’a throws a wrench into the religious and political ideology claiming a lack of caring for continued life, doesn’t it?