Al Qaeda leader al-Zawahiri was staying at house in Kabul linked to Afghan deputy interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani

Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has been killed in a drone strike while staying at a house owned by a top aide to a senior Taliban leader in Kabul.

It has sparked questions as to whether the Taliban has welcomed the terrorist group back in Afghanistan, having previously developed ties with the terrorist group in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Al-Zawahiri, 71, was hiding out with his family in a downtown Kabul property owned by a top aide to senior Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani, according to a senior intelligence official.

Speculation is rising as to whether this living arrangement could create further difficulties for the West’s relations with Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

It comes as US President Joe Biden’s officials said that Haqqani Network leaders knew al-Zawahiri was living in Kabul.

‘Immediately after the strike, Haqqani operatives sealed off the area and relocated Zawahiri’s relatives. A damning indictment of Taliban credibility,’ said director of the Middle East Institute, Charles Lister.

It may add further credibility to recent intelligence claims from the US that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the official name of the Taliban government, has allowed al-Qaeda to re-emerge in Afghanistan, after taking over the country last year.

In June, UN security intelligence experts revealed that al-Qaeda was enjoying a ‘safe haven’ in Afghanistan under the Taliban and warned the country could become a base for international terrorist attacks once again.

Following the drone strike location reveal, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said: ‘This news sheds light on the possible re-emergence of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan following President Biden’s disastrous withdrawal a year ago.

‘The Biden administration must provide Congress with a classified briefing as soon as possible to discuss the resurgence of al-Qaeda in the region over the past year, the current foreign terrorist threat to America, and the steps we must take to keep our country safe and prevent terrorists from entering the United States.’

Bill Roggio, military commentator and managing editor of The Long War Journal, warned DailyMail.com ahead of the address that Biden would tout Zawahiri’s death as a victory.

‘The message tonight is going to be that this was a huge counter-terrorism success. But really this means that al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan and never left.’ Roggio said.

He also cautioned there is more concern the Taliban is again harboring al-Qaeda.

‘The big lie the Biden Administration told us to get out of Afghanistan was that al-Qaeda was gone,’ Roggio explained. ‘It is likely the US got Zawahiri because was over confident and operating in Kabul.

‘He wasn’t hiding out in the mountains. We’re hearing that he was being sheltered by a top Taliban deputy. The Biden Administration is going to tout this as some victory of their ‘over-the-horizon’ capabilities, but that’s the spin.’

The Taliban formed links with al-Qaeda between 1996 and 2001, when the Islamist group ruled over Afghanistan.

Al-Qaeda reportedly paid the Taliban $20million each year to operate in Afghanistan, as the group orchestrated its attack on New York City’s World Trade Centre, killing almost 3,000 people.

Over the 20-year war in Afghanistan, the US targeted and splintered al-Qaida, sending leaders into hiding. As the Taliban and al-Qaida spilt across the region, many collaborated and regrouped in factions, with ISIS emerging in 2014.

The US’s exit from Afghanistan last September gave al-Qaida the opportunity to rebuild.

US military officials, including General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have said that al-Qaida was trying to reconstitute in Afghanistan, where it faced limited threats from the now-ruling Taliban. Military leaders have warned that the group still aspired to attack the US.

In 2020, the Taliban signed the Doha peace deal with Donald Trump’s administration, saying that said it would keep ISIS and al-Qaida out of Afghanistan.

But critics at the time said that the Taliban would provide a ‘safe haven’ for terrorist groups.

‘Al-Qaeda will probably come back,’ UK defence secretary Ben Wallace warned at the time.

A statement from Afghanistan’s Taliban government confirmed the air strike, but did not mention al-Zawahri or any other casualties.

It said it ‘strongly condemns this attack and calls it a clear violation of international principles and the Doha Agreement,’ the 2020 US pact with the Taliban that led to the withdrawal of American forces.

‘Such actions are a repetition of the failed experiences of the past 20 years and are against the interests of the United States of America, Afghanistan, and the region,’ the statement said.

President Joe Biden confirmed in a televised speech that a US drone strike in Afghanistan on Sunday killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri, declaring ‘justice has been delivered.’

‘This terrorist leader is no more,’ Biden said in an evening speech from the White House.

‘He will never again, never again, allow Afghanistan to become a terrorist safe haven because he is gone and we’re going to make sure that nothing else happens.’

The strike, carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency, was confirmed by five people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity before Biden was set to brief the American people.

Al-Zawahiri’s loss eliminates the figure who more than anyone shaped al-Qaida, first as Osama bin Laden’s deputy since 1998, then as his successor.

Together, he and bin Laden turned the jihadi movement’s guns to target the United States, carrying out the deadliest attack ever on American soil — the September 11, 2001, World Trade Centre and Pentagon attack.

When the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan demolished al-Qaida’s safe haven and scattered, killed and captured its members, al-Zawahiri ensured al-Qaida’s survival.

He rebuilt its leadership in the Afghan-Pakistan border region and installed allies as lieutenants in key positions.

He also reshaped the organisation from a centralised planner of terror attacks into the head of a franchise chain.

He led the assembling of a network of autonomous branches around the region, including in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, North Africa, Somalia, Yemen and Asia.

Over the next decade, al-Qaida inspired or had a direct hand in attacks in all those areas as well as Europe, Pakistan and Turkey, including the 2004 train bombings in Madrid and the 2005 transit bombings in London.

More recently, the al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen proved itself capable of plotting attacks against US soil with an attempted 2009 bombing of an American passenger jet and an attempted package bomb the following year.

Source: Daily Mail