[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Photos and lots of useful illustrations in the helpful Daily Mail way. - The CIA announced they executed Ayman al-Zawahiri, 71, in a drone strike on July 31 as stood on his balcony
- Intelligence services monitored him for months, including British experts based in Harrogate, North Yorkshire
- al-Zawahiri took over terrorist group Al-Qaeda after Osama bin Laden was executed by US military in 2011
- He is believed to have been the last surviving of the eight masterminds of the September 11 terror attacks
It was 6.18am on Sunday, more than an hour after dawn prayers, when the Supreme Leader of Al Qaeda appeared on the balcony of his safe house to enjoy a little sunshine and fresh air.
For Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of the masterminds of the 9/11 terror attacks, watching mornings unfold in the centre of the Afghan capital from his supposedly secure perch had become one of the few regular pleasures of his life in hiding.
He wasn’t to know that his balcony was anything but safe and that Taliban spies in the pay of the Americans and the British had been monitoring him for months – their knowledge of his whereabouts so detailed that a scale model of his hideaway had sat on a table in President Biden’s White House office for weeks.
And they were watching him again now, not only from Washington but also from a listening station in – of all places – Harrogate, North Yorkshire, after a Western-recruited intelligence source spotted him on the balcony.
According to a senior Taliban official, Zawahiri – who took over Al Qaeda after the US killed Osama bin Laden – had never left the country. After he became one of the world’s most wanted men in September 2001 and a US-led invasion expelled the Taliban that year, Zawahiri spent most of his time in the remote mountains of Musa Qala in the southern Helmand province.
He kept a low profile, said the Taliban leader, although he crossed into Pakistan’s border regions several times. The founders of Islamic State reportedly sought an alliance with the destroyers of the World Trade Centre but, unimpressed by Zawahiri’s cautious leadership, changed their minds.
According to intelligence insiders, just as Bin Laden’s whereabouts were revealed by following his courier, so Zawahiri’s family gave away his location.
While Zawahiri had been obsessed with personal security, the return to power of the Taliban opened new possibilities.
British security sources reportedly also became aware around April that Zawahiri’s family had moved from Helmand to Kabul.
The terror leader married four times and had seven children, although at least four of them had died along with his first wife Azza.
He was living with only one wife and a daughter when – under the protection of the Haqqani Network, a militant and ultra-violent faction considered to a semi-independent offshoot of the Taliban – he moved into a high-walled compound in Sherpur, a relatively affluent part of central Kabul.
The house reportedly belongs to an aide to Haqqani leader Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s interior minister. Sherpur, once the diplomatic quarter, is now home to senior Taliban officials, who may have not been aware of his arrival.
US intelligence insiders say they discovered the location and identified those inside through various sources, including – the Mail has learnt – personnel inside the Taliban recruited by British spies who provided significant elements of the information used to plan and execute the mission.
US officials waited some 36 hours before announcing they had killed Zawahiri, a period during which they observed the Haqqani Network and Taliban troops restrict access to the safe house and relocate the tar - get’s family. US officials believe the Taliban was trying to hide the fact that they harboured Zawahiri.
The revelation that the Taliban was harbouring the Al Qaeda leader is likely to fuel demands for sanctions. Meanwhile, a furious hunt is under way for those who tipped off British and US intelligence officials, with suspects having their mobile phones and laptops seized.
The insider added: ‘They had people inside the Taliban whose cooperation made the mission possible.’
Hellfire missiles are air-to-surface missiles initially designed for anti-armor strikes, but later versions have been used for precision dronezaps. The arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin developed the missiles with the name "Heliborne, Laser, Fire, and Forget Missile," which evolved into the Hellfire missile, as it is now known, CBS further reported.
The R9X variant was initially deployed in secret in 2017, according to a U.S. Army equipment guide, and was used to kill Abu Khayr al-Masri, a member of al Qaeda's leadership. Photos of the aftermath on social media showed the car where al-Masri was purportedly killed as having damage to the passenger compartment of the beige Kia sedan but no damage to the engine block. The roof was blown open on the right side of the vehicle.
There were unconfirmed reports that al Qaeda deputy leader Abdullah Muhammad Rajab Abdulrahman, aka Abu al-Khayr al-Masri, was killed in the strike.
The Hellfire variant became public knowledge after it was used in 2019 to take out Jamal Ahmad Mohammad al-Badawi, who was behind the 2000 USS Cole Bombing.
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...mindless ferocity in a turban...
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...mindless ferocity in a turban...
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...established in 2007 with the intent of taking one conventional infantry kandak (battalion) from each of the regional ANA corps, giving them special training and equipment, and reorganizing based on the U.S. Army Rangers. Each battalion is assigned to one of the six regional corps. The commandos comprise 7% of the Afghan National Security Forces but conduct 70% to 80% of the fighting...
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
...embracing their inner Islamic Brute...