{"id":74254,"date":"2022-08-03T10:30:12","date_gmt":"2022-08-03T00:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=74254"},"modified":"2022-08-03T11:12:27","modified_gmt":"2022-08-03T01:12:27","slug":"zawahiris-death-echoes-of-9-11-and-a-demonstration-of-us-resolve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/zawahiris-death-echoes-of-9-11-and-a-demonstration-of-us-resolve\/","title":{"rendered":"Zawahiri\u2019s death: echoes of 9\/11 and a demonstration of US resolve"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

America has killed al-Qaeda\u2019s head, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was living in a wealthy Kabul suburb under the noses of the Taliban leadership. Al-Zawahiri living and working in Afghanistan is an echo of the safe harbour the Taliban gave his former boss, Osama bin Laden, to plan and conduct the horrific September 11 attacks. That continued until the Taliban were ousted at the start of the 20-year Afghan war. So, there\u2019s a symmetry to the Taliban again harbouring an al-Qaeda head while America hunts him.<\/p>\n

Al-Zawahiri\u2019s death comes 11 years after bin Laden was killed in May 2011, at his home near a major Pakistani military base. It\u2019s 21 years since al-Zawahiri played a role in planning the 9\/11 attacks, but he\u2019s been a capable and canny organiser and leader who has kept al-Qaeda viable. Unlike bin Laden, he didn\u2019t need a special forces team conducting an extended high-risk night raid to kill him\u2014al-Zawahiri died from two small but lethal Hellfire missiles<\/a>\u00a0fired by a drone operated remotely by the CIA.<\/p>\n

His death has narrow and broad messages and results.<\/p>\n

One clear message is that while the US and NATO forces have withdrawn from Afghanistan, they can still get intelligence about people there to conduct precision attacks.<\/p>\n

While the Taliban have ruled Afghanistan since the chaotic withdrawal ordered by US President Joe Biden in August 2021, their control is partial, porous and disputed. Internal Taliban factions, diverse warlords and extremist groups like al-Qaeda and Islamic State make it hard for the Taliban to rule.<\/p>\n

On top of this, many Afghans don\u2019t want to live under the Taliban\u2019s fundamentalism and brutality. Finding people willing to betray others or to provide intelligence on enemies in this moiling mix of interests, actors and grievances looks to be fertile work. So, any terrorist figures living under Taliban rule must keep looking over their shoulder wondering who they can trust and for how long. This undercuts terrorists\u2019 ability to plan, operate and conduct attacks.<\/p>\n

The other message comes from the Taliban\u2019s confused reaction to al-Zawahiri\u2019s death. Spokespeople have simultaneously denied there was any attack, claimed that the house struck in the attack was empty, and expressed outrage that the Americans have done this because it breaks their agreement to withdraw the US military.<\/p>\n

This last line is the most important, though not because the Biden administration broke any deal with the Taliban. The strike was a remote one conducted by the CIA and involved no US boots on the ground. It\u2019s important because it shows the Taliban returning to form, saying al-Zawahiri shouldn\u2019t have been killed because he was living under its protection. That\u2019s a very dangerous path, and won\u2019t help the Taliban\u2019s campaign for legitimacy around the world.<\/p>\n

Narrowly, it\u2019s a reverse for al-Qaeda as an active and violent international terrorist outfit, and a reversal for the Taliban because it demonstrates their porous control and continued instinct to harbour violent extremist individuals and groups.<\/p>\n

More broadly, it\u2019s a further nail in the coffin for the narrative out of places like Moscow and Beijing that the West is failing and lacks the resolve to act in its security interests in the wider world.<\/p>\n

The US conducted this strike as Biden leads the broad international coalition supporting President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian people in their fight against Vladimir Putin, and while showing resolve and support for Taiwan in the face of Beijing\u2019s growing intimidation and aggression there. It turns out that powerful democracies can walk and chew gum.<\/p>\n

We are living in a dangerous, fracturing world where violence and force are more present than in recent decades. Old threats like terrorism are still active, while new threats from emboldened, powerful autocrats are obvious.<\/p>\n

In that world we should take heart from the damage Biden has caused this week to al-Qaeda and from the resolve he and other leaders\u2014like Zelensky and Taiwan\u2019s Tsai Ing-wen\u2014are demonstrating while facing the challenges from the empowered autocrats in Beijing and Moscow. What happens from here matters to us all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

America has killed al-Qaeda\u2019s head, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was living in a wealthy Kabul suburb under the noses of the Taliban leadership. Al-Zawahiri living and working in Afghanistan is an echo of the safe harbour …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":766,"featured_media":74256,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[43,155,393,402,1088,31],"class_list":["post-74254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-afghanistan","tag-al-qaeda","tag-cia","tag-drones","tag-taliban","tag-united-states"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nZawahiri\u2019s death: echoes of 9\/11 and a demonstration of US resolve | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/zawahiris-death-echoes-of-9-11-and-a-demonstration-of-us-resolve\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Zawahiri\u2019s death: echoes of 9\/11 and a demonstration of US resolve | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"America has killed al-Qaeda\u2019s head, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was living in a wealthy Kabul suburb under the noses of the Taliban leadership. 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