President Joe Biden reassured the world in July 2021, during the withdrawal from Afghanistan, that the United States is “confident” it could prevent the Middle Eastern country from becoming a base from which terror groups could flourish, but a year later, a drone stroke revealed al Qaeda’s foothold.
Nearly 13 months after Biden’s remarks, his administration publicly shared that Ayman al Zawahiri, the successor of Osama bin Laden in al Qaeda’s leadership, was living in Kabul’s Shirpur neighborhood, where senior Afghan officials own mansions, while top Taliban leaders had knowledge of his presence. A U.S. drone strike killed him on July 30.
“While the administration takes a victory lap for this, they have to inherently admit that their prior statements of al Qaeda being gone from Afghanistan are not true. Many of us made the point when the president made the statement that al Qaeda was not in Afghanistan, that it did not reflect reality, and he cited that as his main reason for leaving Afghanistan,” Rep. Mike Turner (OH), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, told the Washington Examiner in an interview. “Just as the president has shattered a balcony at the home Zawahiri was staying at, the president’s premise has been shattered.”
The U.S. withdrawal last August, which coincided with the Taliban’s rise to power again, likely lulled al Zawahiri back to Afghanistan, where he had lived with his family in recent months. Without any U.S. troops in the country to collect real-time intelligence on his apparent presence in the capital, intelligence community analysts spent months creating a “pattern of life” of the house’s occupants, including the elderly man they believed to be al Zawahiri. A senior administration official told reporters recently that they weren’t sure that he had left the house since his arrival months ago.
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One of those habits that they discovered and were able to exploit was his affinity to stand on the balcony on the third floor alone, according to the Washington Post. The balcony provided the U.S. with its best shot to get al Zawahiri without harming others because Biden stressed to his national security team his desire to avoid civilian casualties. In what ultimately became the administration’s first successful over-the-horizon strike in Afghanistan, a CIA drone launched two Hellfire missiles at al Zawahiri on the morning of the penultimate day of July, and there were no additional casualties.
Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), an Iraq War veteran who secretly traveled to Afghanistan last August amid the chaotic evacuation efforts of Americans and Afghan allies who would be at risk under the new Taliban regime, celebrated the strike but maintained that hitting one al Qaeda target, even al Zawahiri, isn’t enough.
“We just killed the No. 1 al Qaeda guy. That represents a huge victory, but there are a hell of a lot of people below him, and how many of them are trading, recruiting, or otherwise planning an operation against the United States?” the Democratic lawmaker said in an interview. “I’m not sure that we know. And it’s much harder to tell when we’re not in that part of the world.”
He also said he hasn’t been to Afghanistan since his secret visit with outgoing Rep. Peter Meijer (R-MI).
In the aftermath of the strike, the administration official who spoke with reporters days after the strike occurred also accused Taliban leaders of trying to cover up the al Qaeda leader’s presence at the compound, specifically by moving the family from the home. The official described their decision to move his relatives as “consistent with a broader effort to cover up” their presence at the safe house.
“Senior Haqqani Taliban figures were aware of Zawahiri’s presence in Kabul,” the official noted. “Once Zawahiri … arrived at the location, we are not aware of him ever leaving the [safe house].”
While the administration has highlighted the strike against al Zawahiri as proof that its over-the-horizon counterterrorism plan in Afghanistan, or the U.S.’s ability to conduct their counterterrorism strategy without a presence in the country, is a winning strategy, skeptics on both sides of the political spectrum remain aplenty and unconvinced. Those critics have emphasized the fact that a senior al Qaeda leader was living in the capital of Afghanistan with the knowledge of the Taliban while balking at the administration’s touting of its over-the-horizon strategy.
“Biden administration officials have insisted that al Qaeda’s residual presence in Afghanistan was insignificant and that al Qaeda lacks the capability to attack the homeland anytime soon,” Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told the Washington Examiner in a statement. “But we now know that its top leader was living in downtown Kabul, in the apartment of a Haqqani family member who serves as a top official in the Taliban government. We’re also seeing evidence that terrorists in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Africa have been emboldened by this administration’s failed policies.”
“Our military leaders have always said that conducting over-the-horizon strikes in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of U.S. troops would be very difficult, but not impossible,” he said, downplaying the implications of the strike. “This is why they recommended against a complete and unconditional withdrawal, but unfortunately, President Biden did not listen, and the result is precisely what everyone warned would happen: The Taliban took over, and al Qaeda once again has a safe haven.”
Turner also said the strike wasn’t an example of a successful over-the-horizon strike because the U.S. has only targeted one person instead of a full campaign of these strikes.
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“This strike does not show that they have over-the-horizon capabilities,” he added. “And this is a typical counterterrorism strike against an individual. Over the horizon, as they were touting it, was going to be [a] large-scale ability to impact terrorist groups and organizations and diminish their ability to operate within Afghanistan. Striking an individual obviously doesn’t do that.”
The sheer number of strikes needed to affect terror groups, the Ohio lawmaker said, requires “significant both intelligence capabilities and strike capabilities,” and he argued the administration “has yet to show to Congress that it has a plan.”
Moulton said there’s “a bipartisan concern in Congress” that the U.S. doesn’t “ultimately have the position and the resources necessary to do this effectively.” Similarly, Inhofe added, “Congress has not yet been informed how the Biden administration intends to bolster its surveillance of these terrorists so we can stay ahead of these threats.”
In addition to the possible al Qaeda resurgence emanating from Afghanistan, the U.S. has expressed concern about ISIS-K, the Islamic State’s branch in Afghanistan that was responsible for the Aug. 26, 2021, bombing at the Kabul airport that killed 13 U.S. service members and roughly 170 civilians.
