Biden asked about lighting, weather, and building materials before al-Zawahiri was liquidated

Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a US strike in Afghanistan at the weekend, the biggest blow to the extremist group since the killing of its founder Osama bin Laden in 2011.

A senior official in President Joe Biden’s administration said that al-Zawahiri had been in hiding for years and that the process of locating and killing him was the result of “meticulous and tireless” work by the counterterrorism and intelligence community, Reuters reported.

Until the US announcement, various rumors circulated about Zawahiri’s presence in the tribal region of Pakistan or inside Afghanistan.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, provided the following details of the operation:

For many years, the US government has been aware of a network it has estimated was supporting al-Zawahiri, and over the past year, after the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, officials have been watching for indications of an al-Qaeda presence in the country.

This year, officials determined that the al-Zawahiri family — his wife, daughter, and children — had moved into a safe house in Kabul before determining that al-Zawahiri was in the same location.

Over the course of several months, intelligence officials grew increasingly confident that they had correctly identified al-Zawahiri at the safe house in Kabul. In early April, they began briefing senior administration officials. Then Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, briefed President Joe Biden.

“We were able to determine (Al-Zawahiri’s) lifestyle through multiple independent sources of information to guide the operation,” the official said.

Once Zawahiri reached the safe house in Kabul, the official said, he was unaware that he had left and that they spotted him on his balcony – where he was eventually targeted – on several occasions.

Officials investigated the method and nature of the safe house construction and vetted the home’s occupants to ensure that the United States could confidently carry out an operation to kill al-Zawahiri without threatening the safety of the building and minimizing risks to civilians and al-Zawahiri’s family, the official said.

In the past few weeks, President Joe Biden has held meetings with senior advisers and members of the administration to examine intelligence and assess the best course of action.

On July 1, members of the administration, including CIA director, briefed Biden on a proposed operation in the White House Situation Room.

Biden asked “detailed questions about what we knew and how we knew it” and closely examined a model safe house prepared by the intelligence community and brought to the meeting.

The official said he asked about lighting, weather, building materials and other factors that might affect the success of the operation. The president also asked to analyze the possible repercussions of a strike in Kabul.

– A select group of senior interagency lawyers examined intelligence reports and asserted that al-Zawahiri was a legal target based on his continued leadership of “Al-Qaeda.”

On July 25, the official said, the president invited key members of his administration and his advisers for a final briefing and to discuss how, among other things, Zawahiri’s killing would affect America’s relationship with the Taliban. After soliciting the opinions of others in the room, Biden authorized a “precision air strike” on the condition that it reduced the risk of civilian casualties.

– The drone finally carried out the strike at 9:48 PM EDT (0:48 GMT) on July 30 using Hellfire missiles.
Read also: The Al-Zawahiri years… What is left of Al-Qaeda?