Top Taliban leaders knew that al Qaeda chief Ayman al Zawahiri, the successor of Osama bin Laden, was hiding in Afghanistan, according to a senior administration official who spoke to reporters shortly after the details emerged about a strike that took out the terrorist leader.
Two Hellfire missiles were fired at al Zawahiri’s safe house in Kabul, and there were no indications that anyone else died in the strike that occurred on Saturday night, the official said. The official also accused Taliban leaders of trying to cover up the al Qaeda leader’s presence at the compound.
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Earlier this year, the United States identified the safe house he was staying in and began tracking him for the next couple of months. Even though his family members were in the safe house at the time of the strike, the official said they were unharmed.
The Taliban have since removed the family from the home, which the official described as “consistent with a broader effort to cover up” their presence at the safe house.
“Senior Haqqani Taliban figures were aware of Zawahiri’s presence in Kabul. Once Zawahiri … arrived at the location, we are not aware of him ever leaving the [safe house],” the official said. “We identified Zawahiri on multiple occasions for sustained periods of time on the balcony where he was ultimately struck.”
Al Zawahiri had previously served as bin Laden’s deputy since 1998. The two met during the Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s.
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This was the U.S.’s first strike in Afghanistan since the military left last August despite the administration’s insistence that it would be able to gather enough intelligence successfully from afar to maintain strikes.
