Zawahiri appeared on his balcony. The CIA was ready to kill him.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

There goes the neighborhood.

Zawahiri appeared on his balcony. The CIA was ready to kill him.

After eluding U.S. intelligence agencies for two decades, the al-Qaeda leader showed up on the balcony of a house in downtown Kabul

By Shane Harris
August 2, 2022 at 7:34 p.m. EDT

Ayman al-Zawahiri, the 71-year-old leader of al-Qaeda, stepped onto the third-floor balcony of his house in an exclusive neighborhood of Kabul around 6:15 a.m. Sunday. He usually appeared in the morning, shortly after daybreak. Sometimes he read. He was always alone. ... And the CIA was watching. ... After hunting the co-planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks for more than two decades, U.S. intelligence personnel had tracked Zawahiri a few months earlier to a safe house in Kabul’s Shirpur neighborhood, where senior Afghan officials own mansions. Members of the Haqqani Taliban faction, who patrolled the area, knew exactly who their new neighbor was, U.S. officials said.

Intelligence analysts monitored the house, creating a “pattern of life” based on the comings and goings of the occupants. They paid especially close attention to the man who, as far as they could tell, never left. The others — now believed to be Zawahiri’s wife, his daughter and her children — took steps to avoid being followed home whenever they ventured out. “Long-standing terrorist tradecraft,” one senior administration official called it. ... The house appeared to be located in the secure section of the neighborhood, behind a large bank and several guarded alleys lined with government compounds. It was just a short distance from the former top U.S. military headquarters and U.S. Embassy in downtown Kabul.

[Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda leader, killed at 71]

This summer, after President Biden was briefed on Zawahiri’s likely location, he ordered his advisers to take all possible measures to ensure that if they launched a strike, only Zawahiri would be killed, officials said. When the time came, the balcony afforded the best shot.

{snip}

Zawahiri’s end

On July 31 — this past Sunday — Zawahiri stepped onto the balcony, alone. At 6:18 a.m., a CIA drone in the sky above fired two Hellfire missiles. ... It’s not known whether Zawahiri reacted. But former officials who have participated in drone strikes say it’s not uncommon, in the final seconds before impact, for the target to look up as he hears a projectile rocketing toward him. {snip} After the strike, Haqqani Taliban members swooped in and tried to conceal Zawahiri’s presence at the safe house, restricting access there and the surrounding area for several hours, the senior administration official said. They moved Zawahiri’s wife, his daughter and her children to another location. ... The house that once held the al-Qaeda chief is now empty.

Pamela Constable in Kabul and Dan Lamothe in Washington contributed to this report.

Gift Article
https://wapo.st/3zVfuh6

By Shane Harris
Shane Harris covers intelligence and national security for The Washington Post. He has been a writer at the Wall Street Journal, the Daily Beast and Foreign Policy, among other publications. He has written two books, "The Watchers" and "@War." Twitter https://twitter.com/shaneharris

[comradebillyboy]

1. Now that is what a "surgical strike" is supposed to look like.

Good job, CIA. Glad I'm not on your shit list.

[Chainfire]

2. Struck down in the prime of life....I hope he looked up right before he got the blender treatment.

[RussBLib]

3. This drone and the missiles...

...I heard on the news that these missiles had no explosives on them. Instead, before they hit their target, 4 or 5 sharp blades come out and basically slice the target up. Damn. I'll bet it was a gruesome scene.