Nearly three days after Ayman al-Zawahiri was struck by a drone in the heart of one of the most elite neighborhoods of the Afghan capital, the Taliban have barely responded. The assassination of such a high-profile guest was a counterterrorism coup for Washington and a security and intelligence failure for the Taliban. It has also created a major internal and international crisis for the group. Nearly a year after seizing control of Afghanistan, they are still seeking diplomatic recognition for their government, which they hope will stem an economic crisis by allowing sanctions to be lifted and frozen funds to be released. An aggressive response to Zawahiri’s death would not advance this cause. But al Qaeda and its leadership are revered by many in the group’s ranks, who are also likely to see a drone strike in the heart of the capital as an attack on their sovereignty. A firefight in the heart of Kabul on Tuesday with Islamic State fighters was a reminder that the group is under pressure inside Afghanistan from even more extremist groups, which aim to capture disaffected Taliban fighters. “For the Taliban who want to have good relations with the West, I think this is a very difficult political situation,” said Beth Dam, an analyst and author of a biography of the Taliban’s founding leader, Mullah Omar. “They have to comfort their fighters by being tough on the US… At the same time, they want to be civil so they don’t lose the US.” So, after Zawahiri’s death, the Taliban leadership gathered to discuss whether to respond to the strike and, if so, what approach to take, Reuters reported, citing senior members of the movement. Suhail Sahin, the Taliban’s designated UN representative based in Doha, effectively acknowledged that the group had not yet decided how to respond when he told reporters seeking comment on the attack: “I await details and a reaction from Kabul. So far I have not received.” Kabul-based spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid issued only a brief statement accusing America of violating the Doha agreement, which paved the way for its troop withdrawal. Some officials said the house was empty, but none directly denied Zawahiri’s death. The Taliban had promised the US in Qatar that it would not harbor militant groups that might threaten America and its allies, and for nearly a year after taking over Afghanistan they insisted they had kept that promise. Just two days before the strike, Taliban Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani told an Indian news agency that al-Qaeda was “already dead” and “has no presence in Afghanistan.” At the time, Zawahiri was still alive, in a house believed to be rented by one of Haqqani’s aides, in an enclave controlled by the minister’s own Taliban faction. It was an open secret among many circles in Kabul that the area – a stone’s throw from the diplomatic enclave and ministry buildings – was teeming with “Arabs”, a thinly veiled reference to al-Qaeda’s foreign fighters, although the presence of the leader it was probably a well-kept secret to them. He may have been held there in a form of house arrest. The Taliban previously invited Osama bin Laden to their then capital, Kandahar, in the mid-1990s in an attempt to curtail his activities or improve surveillance. It proved spectacularly unsuccessful, and Zawahiri also seems to have operated effectively from his base in Kabul, sending messages and videos. Like his former guest, Haqqani has a multi-million dollar bounty on his head for his role in terrorist attacks, and is said to be so concerned for his own safety that he regularly changes homes even in Kabul. So it’s not clear why he thought the al Qaeda leader was safer staying in one place. The US has long been clear that it would target Zawahiri, a key architect of the 9/11 attacks on America, wherever they found him. But the Taliban, having defeated America on the battlefield, apparently thought they could also hide one of the world’s most wanted men from its spies. “The strike site is just a five-minute walk from the German embassy, ​​which itself has been scarred by terrorism (a major Taliban attack in 2017) and the Taliban are in talks with the Germans to try to bring back diplomats and German development aid,” said Graeme Smith, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group, focusing on Afghanistan. “So this highlights the really bold hospitality that the Taliban was trying to do, trying to host representatives of the international system, while also hosting radicals who were bent on subverting that system.”