“Justice has been done. This terrorist leader is no longer alive,” the US president announced with satisfaction that Al-Zawahiri had been killed in a drone attack on his hideout in Kabul. The success of the CIA operation is a windfall that Biden could use well as his popularity has plummeted dangerously low due to rising prices and the faltering economy.
Many Americans view the 79-year-old president as a weak leader, so the White House stressed that Biden himself was actively involved in preparing the drone strike on the house where Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden’s successor was hiding. . Nothing new, by the way: his predecessors Barack Obama and Donald Trump were also not afraid to highlight their role in the elimination of bin Laden (2011) and IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (2019).
With the operation, Biden took revenge not only for the September 11 attacks, in which al-Zawahiri played a major role, but also for the humiliating retreat of US troops from Afghanistan almost a year ago. In the chaotic course of this, Biden was accused of irreparably damaging the image of the US by abandoning Afghan allies.
The precision strike on Zawahiri shows White House officials that, as Biden promised last year, the United States can hold on to threats from the country even after leaving Afghanistan, with “operations from over the horizon,” as it’s called.
Protection of Taliban
It appears that the CIA received help from informants on the ground in the drone strike on Al-Zawahiri’s hideout. That would be good news for the US. But the fact that the Al Qaeda leader was hiding in a house in a residential area where many senior Taliban officials and military commanders live is painful for Biden.
It clearly shows that the Taliban are not living up to their promise to stop hosting terrorist groups that pose a threat to the US. It is certain that Al-Zawahiri lived there under the protection of the Taliban.
Biden’s Republican opponents immediately seized the opportunity to disrupt his victory lap. Zawahiri’s presence in Kabul shows the “total failure of the Biden administration’s Afghanistan policy,” Republican Senator James Inhofe said. Republican Congressman Michael McCaul accused the president of “lying to” the American people. “Al Qaeda has not left Afghanistan, as Biden falsely claimed last year.”
As late as June this year, experts from the United Nations warned in a report that al-Qaida has been given more and more leeway under the Taliban regime since the departure of the American soldiers. The report also pointed out that numerous Al Qaeda figures have settled in the former diplomatic quarter in Kabul, though they believed at the time that Al-Zawahiri was in the inhospitable area along the border with Pakistan.
Earlier, New York’s Soufan Center, which deals with terrorist groups, warned that Al Qaeda was in the process of regrouping and arming after the US withdrawal. Hundreds of Al Qaeda fighters are said to receive training from the Taliban and foreign jihadists in Helmand province.
Doha Agreement
For Al Qaeda, the death of the experienced Al-Zawahiri, a man who has worked with Osama bin Laden himself, is undoubtedly a heavy blow. Yet Afghanistan experts warn that it will certainly not mean the end of the terror group. For now, the Taliban have shown no inclination to cut ties with al-Qaeda, despite the promises they made in the 2020 Doha agreement with the US under President Trump.
President Biden reaffirmed yesterday that the US will not tolerate Afghanistan once again becoming a base for terrorist groups under the Taliban. But his problem is that the Taliban regime, in which the radical wing has gained the upper hand, will not be very impressed. The Taliban know that there is no appetite among Americans for a new military adventure in Afghanistan, especially not Biden himself.