Taliban Militants in Kabul (file photo)
Tolo News: Gunmen have engaged in clashes with Islamic Emirate [Taliban] forces in the Karta-e-Sakhi area of Kabul city. Earlier Kabul security department spokesman Khalid Zadran said security forces were conducting a clearing operation when gunfire came from a house. He said the residence was surrounded by Islamic Emirate forces. Click here to read more (external link).
By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
Abubakar Siddique
August 2, 2022
For years, Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahri was believed to be hiding in the remote, mountainous areas straddling Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan.
But in an ironic twist, the terrorist network leader was killed by a U.S. drone strike in a posh neighborhood in central Kabul that was largely built with U.S. taxpayer money.
The house where Zawahri, one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, was hiding at the time of the July 31 attack was located in Shirpur. He was believed to have lived for months in the quiet, leafy neighborhood located within the city’s diplomatic quarters.
Built following the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Shirpur was home to the country’s new political elite. The heavily fortified neighborhood was lined with multimillion-dollar villas, some of which were rented out to foreign companies and governments for exorbitant prices.
The neighborhood came to embody the endemic corruption and impunity of the post-Taliban era. Most of the land in the area was allegedly grabbed by high-ranking government officials and powerful former warlords, who were empowered and enriched by the international military presence.
Many Kabul residents referred to Shirpur as “Churpur.” “Chur” means stolen in the local Dari language. After a major corruption scandal in 2003, Afghan police forcefully evicted several hundred people from Shirpur. But many powerful figures who had illegally acquired land in the area, including six cabinet ministers, defied the evictions, despite a public outcry.
After seizing power in August 2021, Taliban leaders and their families moved into the empty villas in Shirpur. One of the walled houses in the area — a pink three-story building surrounded by high walls and barbed wire — was believed to be where Zawahri and his family were hiding.
U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Zawahri was killed when he appeared on the balcony of his safe house and was hit by Hellfire missiles from a U.S. drone. Zawahri was believed to have moved to Shirpur after the Taliban captured Kabul.
A Taliban official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi that the house belonged to Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s interior minister and the leader of the Haqqani network, a powerful faction of the militant group. Haqqani, who has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head, is one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives.
The Taliban official said security around the house where Zawahri lived was extremely tight. He said only Haqqani and Taliban Defense Minister Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob visited the house on occasion.
“After the drone attack, the street where the house is located was completely cordoned off,” said the Taliban official. “No one is allowed to go there.”
Kabul residents fear that Zawahri’s killing in the city’s most secured area will herald more violence in a country reeling from the Taliban’s harsh rule.
“Why do international terrorists still live in Kabul?” asked Safa, who spoke to Radio Azadi. She said Zawahri’s killing in the heart of Kabul proved that the Taliban still harbored terrorists.
“Why are the Taliban unable to destroy and expel the terrorists from our country?” she asked.
Zawahri’s killing has intensified scrutiny of the Taliban and further undermines its efforts to gain international recognition and secure desperately needed aid.
Under the U.S.-Taliban agreement signed in Doha in 2020, which paved the way for the international military withdrawal from Afghanistan, the militant group pledged that it would not host members of Al-Qaeda.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Taliban had “grossly violated” the agreement by hosting and sheltering Zawahri. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid did not comment on Zawahri’s killing but alleged that Washington had violated the Doha agreement by launching the drone strike.
Zawahri became Al-Qaeda chief after the founder of the terrorist network, Osama bin Laden, was killed in a raid by U.S. forces in Pakistan in 2011. The 71-year-old was one of the masterminds of the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. In retaliation, the United States invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban regime, which had harbored the Al-Qaeda leadership. Zawahri and bin Laden were believed to have escaped to Pakistan.
Another Kabul resident, who did not want to reveal his name for fear of retribution, told Radio Azadi that he feared that Afghanistan would once again become a sanctuary for international terrorists.
“We are worried that these terrorists will exploit Afghanistan again,” he said, “and war will return.”
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CBS News: Nearly a year since the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan, the humanitarian crisis and human rights record under the Taliban remains dire. Despite the demands of the U.S. and many in the international community, the rights of women in Afghanistan have deteriorated to a level unseen since the Taliban first imposed its repressive policies in the 1990s. A quarterly report released Tuesday by the special inspector general for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) found that the USAID, State and Defense Department disbursed at least $787 million to programs focused on women and girls from 2002 to 2020. Click here to read more (external link).
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8am: Local sources in Nangarhar province report that a Taliban base in the province is attacked by the National Resistance Front (NRF). A reliable local source in the province, on the condition of anonymity, told Hasht-e Subh that the forces of NRF attacked a Taliban base in the Shruta area of Dara Noor district of the province. Click here to read more (external link).
More Afghan Resistance News
Ariana: Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) announced that a humanitarian cash aid package of $40 million arrived in Kabul on Tuesday. This comes just two days after another cash aid package of $40 million arrived in the country. DAB said in a statement that on arrival of the cash packages are transferred to a commercial bank in the country. DAB has received more than $1 billion in humanitarian cash aid since the collapse of the former government. Click here to read more (external link).
Sirajuddin Haqqani
Ariana: In an interview with an Indian news channel on Friday, July 29, Afghanistan’s acting Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani said that the al-Qaeda network does not have a military presence in Afghanistan and that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) [Taliban] is bound by its commitments to the international community to fight ISIS. Haqqani added that al-Qaeda does not have a military force in Afghanistan and that the network is no longer a threat to the security of the region and the world. Click here to read more (external link).
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Al Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahri
Anita Powell, Ayaz Gul
VOA News
August 2, 2022
WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD — Senior White House officials say they have concluded with “high confidence” that al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was the only one killed in a weekend drone strike in Kabul, and that they were aware that senior members of the Taliban’s Haqqani network knew he was in Afghanistan.
The Biden administration did not alert the Taliban ahead of the strike, the officials told reporters late Monday. They confirmed that the strike was conducted by an unmanned aerial vehicle, with no U.S. personnel on the ground.
U.S. President Joe Biden had announced Monday night that a U.S. missile strike over the weekend had killed one of the world’s most wanted terrorists.
For the past decade, Ayman al-Zawahiri headed al-Qaida, the Islamist terror group that spawned franchises around the world after the stunning attacks on U.S. soil on September 11, 2001.
“Now, justice has been delivered,” Biden said Monday night. “And this terrorist leader is no more.” He added: “We make it clear again tonight that no matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide, if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out.”
The United States invaded Afghanistan shortly after the September 11 attacks, and al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was the prime target. U.S. forces killed him in Pakistan in 2011.
Al-Zawahiri, born in Egypt to a wealthy family and trained as a surgeon, took over the terror group in 2011. Before that, he was said to be bin Laden’s personal doctor.
The confirmation of his death came more than an hour after the Taliban rulers in Kabul said a missile attack on Sunday against a residential compound in the Afghan capital was the work of an American drone.
Senior White House officials told reporters Monday night that the operation targeted a house in Kabul with an unmanned aerial vehicle, with no U.S. personnel on the ground. Administration officials also said they concluded with “high confidence” that only al-Zawahiri was killed, and that they were aware that senior members of the Taliban’s Haqqani network knew he was in Afghanistan. Officials said they did not alert the Taliban ahead of the strike.
A senior administration official said al-Zawahiri “continued to provide strategic direction to al-Qaida affiliates worldwide, calling for attacks on the United States.”
Taliban condemns attack
The Taliban were quick to share their ire.
“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan strongly condemns this attack on whatever the pretext,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement, using the official name for the Taliban government.
He denounced the strike as a “blatant violation of international principles and the Doha agreement,” referring to the 2020 talks that Taliban leaders held with the United States and Western leaders in Qatar over the withdrawal of U.S. and allied troops the subsequent year.
The safe house sheltering the al-Qaida chief is located in the Sherppor upscale neighborhood of Kabul and the Taliban Haqqani network was aware of it, said a U.S. official.
“We identified Zawahiri on multiple occasions for sustained periods of time on the balcony where he was ultimately struck,” the official added. The slain terror leader had a $25 million U.S. bounty on his head.
Pictures circulating on social media showed shattered windows of a multiple story pink home, its walls topped with rolls of barbed wires. VOA could not immediately ascertain the veracity of the pictures.
Sherpoor houses large palatial houses, some with swimming pools, that were built by former Afghan government officials, warlords, generals, among other influential figures, involved in corruption. Most of them fled the country last August when the Taliban captured Kabul.
The posh neighborhood is located next to a diplomatic area housing foreign embassies.
U.S. officials said senior Haqqani Taliban figures were aware of Zawahiri’s presence in the area, but they did not name anyone.
Taliban Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, who also carries $10 million U.S. bounty on his head, and his group of militants known as the Haqqani network, maintained close ties with al-Qaida leaders while fighting against U.S.-led international forces in Afghanistan.
Residents in Kabul reported hearing multiple blasts early on Sunday shortly after missiles struck the house.
“In the morning, I wanted to go to university when I heard two explosions one after the other,” said Ahmad Milad told the local TOLO news.
Journalists in the Afghan capital rushed to the scene but Taliban authorities blocked them from entering the area.
The Taliban took control of Afghanistan on August 15 as the U.S.-led foreign troops withdrew and the Western-backed government in Kabul and its security forces collapsed in the face of the stunning nationwide Taliban assault.
U.S. officials have been in contact with Pakistani leaders to seek an “over-the-horizon” facility to conduct counterterrorism operations in landlocked Afghanistan after American troops left the country and the Taliban took over.
The U.S.-led military coalition invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 and dislodged the then-Taliban government in Kabul to punish it for harboring the al-Qaida terror network. Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri escaped the international military action.
The U.S.-Taliban agreement also required the Islamist group not to allow any terrorist organization, including al-Qaida, to pose a threat to the security of the United States and other countries from Afghan soil.
“By hosting and sheltering the leader of al Qaida in Kabul, the Taliban grossly violated the Doha Agreement and repeated assurances to the world that they would not allow Afghan territory to be used by terrorists to threaten the security of other countries,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. “They also betrayed the Afghan people and their own stated desire for recognition from and normalization with the international community.”
Recent United Nations assessments suggested that al-Qaida, boosted by leadership stability and the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, appeared to be positioning itself to once again be the world’s preeminent terror group and the greatest long-term threat to the West.
Intelligence shared by United Nations member states and published in a new report earlier this month found al-Qaida was enjoying a degree of freedom under Taliban rule, allowing its leadership to communicate more often and more easily with affiliates and followers. The report further concluded that al-Zawahiri, long rumored to be in ill health or dying, was “alive and communicating freely.”
The U.N. report similarly cautioned that while al-Qaida may be better positioned, it is likely to refrain from launching external attacks in order to not embarrass Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers and because the al-Qaida core still lacks “an external operational capability.”
Analyst Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said it is important for the United States to cut out terror groups at their roots.
“The goal is to keep pressure on terrorists over there so they don’t have the ability to kill us here,” he said. “Every policy decision in Washington should be judged, at least in part, by that metric.”
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz praised the operation.
“This is an important accomplishment,” the Texas senator said in a statement. “All Americans will breathe easier today knowing Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of Al-Qaeda, has been eliminated. This strike should be a message to terrorists near and far: if you conspire to kill Americans, we will find and kill you.”
Former U.S. President Barack Obama praised the intelligence community and counterterrorism personnel, and said the strike “is also proof that it’s possible to root out terrorism without being at war in Afghanistan.”
“And I hope it provides a small measure of peace to the 9/11 families and everyone else who has suffered at the hands of al-Qaeda,” Obama added on Twitter.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called al-Zawahiri’s death “a step toward a safer world.”
Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry said, “Zawahiri is considered one of the leaders of terrorism that led the planning and execution of heinous terrorist operations in the United States and Saudi Arabia.”
Biden said the killing could lead to a new era.
“Now we have eliminated the emir of al-Qaida,” he said. “He will never again – never again – allow Afghanistan to become a terrorist safe haven because he’s gone and we’re going to make sure that nothing else happens. You know, it can’t be a launching pad against the United States. We’re gonna see to it that won’t happen.”
Meanwhile in recent years, al-Qaida has continued to expand, launching violent affiliate groups in the Middle East, West and East Africa, and South Asia.
Jeff Seldin, VOA’s national security correspondent, contributed to this report.
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Al Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahri
TRT World: The Central Intelligence Agency carried out a drone strike in Afghanistan over the weekend, two US officials told Reuters on Monday. The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the strike took place in Kabul on Sunday. They did not give details on the target or whether there were any casualties. Separately President Joe Biden was set to address the nation on Monday following what the White House says was a “successful” counterterrorism operation against a “significant Al Qaeda target” in Afghanistan over the weekend. Click here to read more (external link).
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8am: Sources on Monday, speaking to Hasht-e Subh, said that the Taliban group has recently sent hundreds of fighters to Hesarak village of Rukha district. According to sources, at the same time as sending these rebels, the Taliban ordered the residents of Hesarak village to evacuate the village as soon as possible. Prior to this, Taliban had demanded the evacuation of Gul Zangar village in Rukha district. The sources added that the Taliban have accused the residents of these two villages of collaborating with the National Resistance Front (NRF). Click here to read more (external link).