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Intelligence analysts monitored the home, making a “sample of life” based mostly on the comings and goings of the occupants. They paid particularly shut consideration to the person who, so far as they might inform, by no means left. The others — now believed to be Zawahiri’s spouse, his daughter and her kids — took steps to keep away from being adopted house every time they ventured out. “Lengthy-standing terrorist tradecraft,” one senior administration official known as it.
The home seemed to be situated within the safe part of the neighborhood, behind a big financial institution and a number of other guarded alleys lined with authorities compounds. It was only a quick distance from the previous prime U.S. navy headquarters and U.S. Embassy in downtown Kabul.
This summer time, after President Biden was briefed on Zawahiri’s probably location, he ordered his advisers to take all potential measures to make sure that in the event that they launched a strike, solely Zawahiri can be killed, officers mentioned. When the time got here, the balcony afforded one of the best shot.
This account of the hunt for Zawahiri is drawn from interviews with a number of U.S. officers, most of whom spoke on the situation of anonymity to explain the operations and decision-making that preceded Biden’s order to strike.
The dying of Zawahiri, which Biden introduced to the nation in a White Home handle on Monday night, could yield solely marginal operational worth. After so lengthy on the run, he was extra a figurehead than a mastermind. He was nominally accountable for a terrorist group that operates as a community of associates in Africa and the Center East.
However for Biden, the strike is a big political and strategic victory. Not solely did the US remove a outstanding terrorist and assist to carry some historic closure to the 9/11 assaults, however the Zawahiri operation additionally supplied a proof of idea for the “over the horizon” strikes Biden has lengthy argued will let the US stanch the specter of terrorism in Afghanistan with out having to station troops there.
The drone strike was the primary in Afghanistan since U.S. forces left the nation a yr in the past.
Simply discovering Zawahiri was a unprecedented break in a decades-long manhunt. In late 2001, amid a fierce firefight with U.S. forces, he had slipped away within the mountainous border area of jap Afghanistan together with al-Qaeda’s founder, Osama bin Laden. Zawahiri’s whereabouts turned the stuff of rumor and hypothesis.
However for a number of years, the U.S. intelligence group had been monitoring a community of people that supported Zawahiri, who took over al-Qaeda following bin Laden’s dying in 2011 throughout a U.S. raid in Pakistan. Zawahiri spent his fugitive years avoiding detection and sending ideological, usually pedantic video missives to his followers.
After U.S. forces left Kabul in August 2021, Zawahiri apparently noticed an opportunity to reunite together with his household.
Earlier this yr, intelligence personnel recognized Zawahiri’s members of the family residing in the home in Kabul. It’s not clear whether or not Zawahiri joined them or was already there. However, utilizing what the senior administration official described as “a number of streams of intelligence,” officers started to deal with an aged man in the home in an effort to substantiate his identification.
For the CIA, discovering and killing Zawahiri was greater than an operational crucial. It was payback. In 2009, seven CIA personnel, together with two different individuals, died when a person claiming to have details about Zawahiri connived his method onto a U.S. base in Khost, Afghanistan, and detonated a suicide bomb. It was the deadliest assault on the CIA in additional than a quarter-century.
Early this April, Jon Finer, the deputy nationwide safety adviser, and Liz Sherwood-Randall, Biden’s homeland safety adviser, have been briefed on the newest intelligence in regards to the al-Qaeda chief. As the image developed, Jake Sullivan, the nationwide safety adviser, additionally obtained a briefing. Shortly thereafter, he knowledgeable the president that the US may need situated Zawahiri.
Throughout June and July, groups gathered to vet the intelligence, ruling out any cheap different clarification for who was hiding in the home. Authorities legal professionals confirmed the authorized foundation for the operation, which is normal process for drone strikes. Zawahiri had a “persevering with management function in al-Qaeda” and had participated in and supported terrorist assaults, the senior official mentioned. He was deemed a lawful goal.
Because the legal professionals and analysts labored, prime officers and their deputies met within the State of affairs Room a number of instances. “We wanted to ensure that our data was rock stable and that we developed clear choices for the president,” the senior administration official mentioned.
By early July, intelligence personnel have been almost sure that they’d positively recognized Zawahiri and had devised a approach to kill solely him.
On July 1, Biden convened a gathering within the State of affairs Room with key advisers and Cupboard members to go over the intelligence and the strike plan. CIA Director William J. Burns, carrying a protecting masks, sat to Biden’s proper. On the desk between them was a small wood field, with steel latches on the perimeters and a deal with on prime, containing a tiny scale mannequin of Zawahiri’s secure home.
The president examined the mannequin and requested questions in regards to the strike plan. He additionally requested how officers have been certain they’d positively recognized Zawahiri. They walked the president by means of their evaluation.
“He sought explanations of lighting, of climate, of development supplies, and of different elements that might affect the success of this operation and scale back the danger of civilian casualties,” the senior administration official mentioned. Biden additionally requested for evaluation on the ramifications, within the area and past, of launching a missile strike within the middle of Kabul.
The president had a captive American on his thoughts as effectively — Mark Frerichs, a 60-year-old American civil engineer and Navy veteran who was kidnapped in Afghanistan in January 2020. The one identified remaining American hostage within the nation, he’s believed to have been captured by the Haqqani community. Efforts to carry him house have been underway, and Biden needed to understand how the strike would possibly imperil his return in addition to efforts to relocate Afghans who had helped U.S. forces after they have been deployed within the nation.
On July 25, Biden convened a ultimate briefing.
Once more, the president pressed for particulars on the harm the strike may trigger to the secure home, the senior official mentioned. He needed to raised perceive the structure of the rooms behind the door and home windows on the third flooring, the place the balcony was situated.
Biden requested the opinion of every adviser collaborating within the briefing. Ought to he approve the strike? All of them mentioned sure.
On July 31 — this previous Sunday — Zawahiri stepped onto the balcony, alone. At 6:18 a.m., a CIA drone within the sky above fired two Hellfire missiles.
It’s not identified whether or not Zawahiri reacted. However former officers who’ve participated in drone strikes say it’s not unusual, within the ultimate seconds earlier than impression, for the goal to lookup as he hears a projectile rocketing towards him.
The important thing to protecting Zawahiri’s household alive seems to have been the selection of weapon. Previously, the U.S. has used missiles for precision strikes which are loaded with solely a small quantity of explosives and even none in any respect, turning the Hellfire right into a type of enormous dashing bullet that can destroy something it hits.
A U.S. official mentioned he believed {that a} small-munition Hellfire with the explosive pressure of a hand grenade was used. Images of the secure home don’t present the sorts of burn marks usually related to a big explosion.
Intelligence analysts examined numerous streams of intelligence, which most likely included aerial surveillance, and decided that solely Zawahiri was killed. His household remained secure inside the home, and no civilians have been harmed outdoors, the senior administration official mentioned.
A number of blocks away from the location, residents and shopkeepers spoke Tuesday morning about listening to a strong blast two days earlier. Some mentioned they’d been frightened by the roar and the bottom shaking, whereas others mentioned they’d lengthy been accustomed to such assaults throughout years of warfare.
“All the youngsters ran away from the sound. We hadn’t heard something prefer it because the previous authorities was in cost,” mentioned Haq Asghar, a retired military officer chatting outdoors a {hardware} store. He mentioned that the Shirpur neighborhood was tightly managed by the Taliban, and that anybody occupying a home or store had to supply detailed paperwork and data.
“Safety is excellent now. They undoubtedly don’t let strangers settle in right here,” he mentioned.
After the strike, Haqqani Taliban members swooped in and tried to hide Zawahiri’s presence on the secure home, limiting entry there and the encircling space for a number of hours, the senior administration official mentioned. They moved Zawahiri’s spouse, his daughter and her kids to a different location.
The home that after held the al-Qaeda chief is now empty.
Pamela Constable in Kabul and Dan Lamothe in Washington contributed to this report.
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