US located Zawahiri when he moved to Kabul

August 02, 2022 17:56

US intelligence located reclusive al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri earlier this year in Afghanistan after he moved from Pakistan to a Taliban-supported safe house in a posh locality in downtown Kabul, the US media reported on Tuesday.

US President Joe Biden on Monday announced that Zawahiri, who assumed the leadership of al-Qaeda after the death of Osama bin Laden, was killed in a CIA drone strike on Saturday at a house in Kabul where he was sheltering to reunite with his family, declaring that "justice has been delivered and this terrorist is no more.

The 71-year-old Egyptian surgeon, who had a USD 25 million bounty on his head, was bin Laden's second-in-command during 9/11 attacks and took over as the head of al-Qaeda after his death. He remained a visible international symbol of the terror group, 11 years after the US killed bin Laden during a raid in Pakistan's Abbottabad in 2011.

After relentlessly seeking Zawahiri for years, the US intelligence community located him earlier this year.

US intelligence officials had determined that Zawahiri had moved from Pakistan to a Taliban-supported safe house in downtown Kabul. Zawahiri's wife and children had relocated there first, officials said.

As US intelligence officials monitored them, they learned Zawahiri had joined his family, NBC News reported.

Once Zawahiri arrived at the safe house he never left, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters Monday on the operation. Zawahiri was long believed to have been living in Pakistan.

That he was killed in Kabul is a testament to not only the porous border between the two countries but also to al-Qaeda's decades-long use of facilities, houses, buildings and compounds throughout both countries, The New York Times quoted an official as saying.

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