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WASHINGTON — As the sun rose over Kabul on Sunday, two Hellfire missiles fired from a US drone ended Ayman al-Zawahri’s decade-long reign as al Qaeda leader. The seeds of the bold counter-terrorist operation had been planted for many months. US officials had built a model of the safe house where al-Zawahri was located and brought it to the White House situation room to show President Joe Biden. They knew that al-Zawahri was partial to sitting on the balcony of the house. They had painstakingly constructed “a pattern of life,” as one official put it. They were sure they were on the balcony when the rockets flew, officials said. Years of efforts by U.S. intelligence officials under four presidents to track down al-Zawahri and his associates paid dividends earlier this year, Biden said, when they identified the longtime No. 1 terrorist in the U.S. — and eventual successor at home in Kabul. Bin Laden’s death came in May 2011, face-to-face with a US strike team led by Navy SEALs. Al-Zawahri’s death came from afar, at 6:18 am. in Kabul. His family, supported by the Taliban’s Haqqani network, had settled in the home after the Taliban regained control of the country last year, following the withdrawal of US forces after nearly 20 years of fighting aimed, in part, at holding Al Qaeda since recapturing a base of operations in Afghanistan. But the lead as to where he was was only the first step. Confirming al-Zawahri’s identity, devising a strike in a crowded city that would not recklessly endanger civilians, and ensuring that the operation did not derail other US priorities took months to implement. That effort included independent teams of analysts reaching similar conclusions about the likelihood of al-Zawahri’s presence, scale model and engineering studies of the building to assess the risk to nearby people, and the unanimous recommendation by Biden’s advisers to proceed the strike. “Clear and convincing,” Biden said of the evidence. “I allowed the precision strike that would have removed him from the battlefield once and for all. This measure was carefully, strictly, designed to minimize the risk of harm to other civilians.” The consequences of getting this kind of crisis wrong were devastating a year ago this month, when a US drone strike during the chaotic withdrawal of US forces killed 10 innocent family members, seven of them children. I approved the precision strike that would remove him from the battlefield once and for all. This measure was carefully designed, strictly, to minimize the risk of harm to other civilians.

– President Joe Biden

Biden ordered what officials called a “tailored airstrike,” designed so that the two missiles would only destroy the balcony of the safe house where the terrorist leader had been holed up for months, sparing occupants elsewhere in the building. A senior US administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the planning of the strike, said al-Zawahri was identified on “multiple occasions, over extended periods of time” on the balcony where he died. The official said “multiple streams of intelligence” had convinced US analysts of his presence, having eliminated “all reasonable options” other than his presence there. Two senior national security officials were first briefed on the information in early April, with the president briefed by national security adviser Jake Sullivan shortly thereafter. In May and June, a small circle of officials across the administration worked to vet information and devise options for Biden. On July 1 in the White House situation room, after returning from a five-day trip to Europe, Biden was briefed on the proposed strike by his national security aides. It was at that meeting, the official said, that Biden saw the safe house model and talked about advisers, including CIA Director William Burns, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haynes and National Counterterrorism Center Director Christy Abizaid, with questions about their conclusion that al-Zawahri was hiding there. Biden, the official said, also pressed officials to consider the risks the strike might pose to American Mark Fririch, who has been held captive by the Taliban for more than two years, and to Afghans who have helped the U.S. war effort. remain in the country. US lawyers also looked into the legality of the attack, concluding that al-Zawahri’s continued leadership of the terrorist group and support for al-Qaeda attacks made him a legitimate target. The official said al-Zawahri had created an organizational model that allowed him to lead the global network even from relative isolation. This included taking videos from the home, and the US believes some may be released after his death. On July 25, as Biden isolated in the White House residence with COVID-19, he received a final briefing from his team. Each of the officials involved strongly recommended approval of the operation, the official said, and Biden signed off on the strike as soon as the opportunity arose. In this 1998 photo made available March 19, 2004, Ayman al-Zawahri poses for a photo in Khost, Afghanistan. Al-Zawahri, the top leader of al-Qaeda, was killed by the US over the weekend in Afghanistan. (Photo: Mazhar Ali Khan, Associated Press) That unanimity was missing a decade earlier, when Biden, as vice president, gave President Barack Obama advice he didn’t take — to stop the bin Laden strike, according to Obama’s memoir. The opportunity came early Sunday — late Saturday in Washington — hours after Biden found himself back in isolation with a recovering case of the coronavirus. It was informed when the operation started and when it was completed, the official said. It would take a further 36 hours of intelligence analysis before US officials began sharing that al-Zawahri had been killed, as they watched the Taliban’s Haqqani network restrict access to the safe house and move the family of the dead al-Qaeda leader. US officials interpreted this as the Taliban trying to cover up the fact that they had defected to al-Zawahri. After last year’s troop withdrawal, the US was left with fewer bases in the region to gather intelligence and launch attacks on terrorist targets. It was not clear where the drone carrying the missiles was launched from or whether the countries it flew into were aware of its presence. The US official said the Taliban had not been warned of the attack. In an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” ​​on Tuesday, Sullivan said no uniformed personnel were on the ground when the strike took place and that “we are in direct communication with the Taliban about it.” In his remarks 11 months ago, Biden had said that the US would continue the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan and other countries, despite the withdrawal of troops. “We just don’t have to go to ground war to do it.” “We have what is called over-the-horizon capabilities,” he said. On Sunday, the rockets came into view. x

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Zeke Miller and Aamer Madhani