The State Department issued a “Worldwide Caution” update about the threat of potential terrorist attacks against U.S. citizens overseas in the wake of the U.S. airstrike that killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri in Kabul, Afghanistan.
“The Department of State remains concerned about the continued threat of terrorist attacks, demonstrations, and other violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests overseas,” the State Department said Tuesday. “The Department of State believes there is a higher potential for anti-American violence given the death of Ayman al-Zawahiri.”
The new warning added: “Current information suggests that terrorist organizations continue to plan terrorist attacks against U.S. interests in multiple regions across the globe. These attacks may employ a wide variety of tactics including suicide operations, assassinations, kidnappings, hijackings, and bombings.” The department said this warning replaces its prior one from January 2019.
ZAWAHIRI STRIKE RAISES NEW QUESTIONS ABOUT ‘OVER-THE-HORIZON’ STRATEGY
Al Qaeda was responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on U.S. soil. Zawahiri was also involved in the deadly twin bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 224 civilians, including 12 Americans, and wounded 5,000 others in 1998, and he helped plan the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, which left 17 U.S. sailors dead.
Zawahiri took over the terrorist group responsible for 9/11 after its founder, Osama bin Laden, was killed in a U.S. special forces raid while hiding out in Pakistan in 2011. Zawahiri and bin Laden both pledged allegiance to top Taliban leaders.
A senior Biden administration official said Monday that “this year, we identified that Zawahiri’s family — his wife, his daughter, and her children — relocated to a safe house in Kabul” and that “we then identified Zawahiri at the location in Kabul through layering multiple streams of intelligence.”
The Taliban, the Haqqani network, and al Qaeda remain deeply intertwined in Afghanistan. The Taliban gave al Qaeda safe haven in Afghanistan before 9/11 and continued to protect al Qaeda and fight alongside it for two decades after the U.S. invasion. Numerous members of the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network received top positions in the Taliban’s government last year.
“Senior Haqqani Taliban figures were aware of Zawahiri’s presence in Kabul,” the Biden official said. “We are also aware that Haqqani Taliban members took actions after the strike to conceal Zawahiri’s former presence at the location. … The Haqqani Taliban members acted quickly to remove Zawahiri’s wife, his daughter, and her children to another location, consistent with a broader effort to cover up that they had been living in the safe house.”
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday: “By hosting and sheltering the leader of al Qaeda in Kabul, the Taliban grossly violated the Doha Agreement and repeated assurances to the world that they would not allow Afghan territory to be used by terrorists to threaten the security of other countries.”
The agreement signed in February 2020 said the United States was “committed to withdraw from Afghanistan all military forces” within 14 months, while the Taliban would prevent al Qaeda and other terrorist groups from using Afghanistan “to threaten the security of the United States and its allies.”
ISIS-K, the Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan, was responsible for the late August 2021 suicide bombing at the Kabul airport, which killed 13 U.S. service members and dozens of others. The Taliban — including Haqqani forces — were providing security outside the airport when the bomber got through.
