Still a safe haven?

Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a US strike in Kabul over the weekend. This was the biggest blow to the terror outfit since its founder Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011. Zawahiri had been in hiding for years and the operation to locate and kill him was the result of "careful patient and persistent" work by the counter-terrorism and intelligence community, according to US media reports. His death was announced by US President Joe Biden. "To those around the world who continue to seek to harm the United States, hear me now — we will always remain vigilant, and we will act, and we will always do what is necessary to ensure the safety and security of Americans at home and around the globe," Biden said in remarks from the White House. Until this announcement was made, Zawahiri was thought to be in Pakistan's tribal areas or somewhere deep inside Afghanistan. However, he was found in Kabul, identified and watched for several months before an American drone fired two Hellfire missiles to kill him. The al Qaeda chief was apparently standing in the balcony of a house, located in a plush area near the embassies in the capital city of Afghanistan.

Ayman al-Zawahiri had been the key ideologue behind the global terror network for several decades. The 71-year-old Egyptian eye doctor had allegedly played a key role in al Qaeda's major attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the massive assault on the Twin Towers in Manhattan, New York, on September 11, 2001. But during the decade that he headed al Qaeda following bin Laden's killing in 2011, the outfit could not recover its prominence. Its place as a major global terror outfit was taken over by the aggressive Islamic State (IS). The al Qaeda had become a much-diminished organisation overshadowed by the Islamic State (Khorasan). The reports quoted Western analysts as saying that al-Zawahiri was ageing, had slowed down and was increasingly becoming incapable of rebuilding the outfit, even with the help of the Taliban. Al Zawahiri had grown up in Cairo before turning to dissident politics. He got involved in Egypt's radical Islamist community at a young age and was reportedly arrested at 15 for joining the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. He was jailed for three years in Egypt for militancy and implicated in the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat and the massacre of foreign tourists at the city of Luxor in 1997. He then linked up with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and became al Qaeda's main strategist. He also served as bin Laden's personal physician. Like bin Laden, he too had vanished after the September 11, 2001 attacks, surviving repeated attempts on his life and re-emerging after reports that he had already died. Al-Zawahiri took command of al Qaeda in 2011.

While the ruling Taliban condemned the drone strike without mentioning either al Zawahiri or al Qaeda, the question is what was Ayman al-Zawahiri doing in Afghanistan? The house in which al-Zawahiri was found was said to have been the same one where prominent Taliban warlord Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is currently the Taliban regime's Interior Minister, had been staying earlier. Taliban government's spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid termed the attack as "an act against the interests of Afghanistan and the region .... Repeating such actions will damage the available opportunities." However, these developments have made it clear that the Taliban's nascent government had sheltered the world's most wanted terrorist, even after promising that it would not harbour any terrorist outfit or their leaders or let the Afghan soil be used for terrorism. The drone attack that killed al-Zawahiri underscored the fact that the Taliban have not changed from their first regime in the 1990s, when their hardline policies and relationship with the al Qaeda and the Islamic State had turned Afghanistan into a pariah state. The Taliban now seems to be once more treading the same path that could jeopardise international recognition to their government in Kabul.

A recent United Nations report noted that "large numbers of al-Qaeda fighters and other foreign extremist elements aligned with the Taliban are located in various parts of Afghanistan." The report warned that the Taliban were providing "operating space for about 20 terrorist groups broadly aligned with Al-Qaida and Taliban objectives." It said the primary arbiter between the Taliban and al-Qaeda was the Haqqani network. "Ties between the two groups remain close, based on ideological alignment, relationships forged through common struggle and intermarriage." It said that al Qaeda had found "increased freedom of action" in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power and that al-Zawahri had been issuing regular video messages — a sign that he was feeling more comfortable since the Taliban's takeover. This indicated the terrorist chief had Taliban's protection. Analysts have also pointed to the Taliban government's appointment of Mullah Tajmir Jawad as the deputy head of intelligence as evidence of how seamlessly al Qaeda can regain strength in Afghanistan. Jawad is a former commander of the Haqqani network, the deadly military wing of the Taliban. Accused of planning high-profile attacks, he is now tasked with handling some of the country's most sensitive security issues. Michael Semple, a former European Union special representative in Afghanistan, told a Czech Republic-based radio that until last year, Jawad was "running a suicide bombers' training camp — that's how favorable an environment (Afghanistan) has become for al Qaeda." He said: "The kind of people that al Qaeda treats as their peers or supporters are now moving straight out of the suicide-bomber training camps into running the country's intelligence service." Jawad is not the only Taliban leader accused of facilitating international terrorism. Semple, an Irish expert who is a professor at Queen's University in Belfast, said the centrality of the Haqqani network within the Taliban government's security apparatus was a major boost to the al Qaeda because relations between Haqqani family and al Qaeda's Arab leaders predate the organization's formal founding in the late 1980s. The extended Haqqani family and its loyalists now constitute a key part of the Taliban-led government. Sirajuddin Haqqani, the son of the late chief Maulvi Jalaluddin Haqqani, and Maulvi's brother Khalil ur-Rahman Haqqani, are both ministers in the Taliban cabinet. Washington has designated both as global terrorists and still offers rewards of up to 10 million dollars for information leading to their arrest. Yet, experts say that this time around, al Qaeda might seek a low profile in Afghanistan. "If you are a member of al Qaeda trying to make arrangements to keep your leaders and key operatives safe and out of view and avoiding trouble from the local authorities, what more could you dream of than to have your well-wishers take over the Interior Ministry?" Semple asked. He said al Qaeda regional affiliates already had a large presence in Afghanistan even before the Taliban takeover. Foreign (non-Afghan) militants were embedded within several Taliban units, many of which were even part of al Qaeda's shura, or council.

The drone strike claiming the life of al-Zawahiri highlights what analysts and experts have so far been warning — that the Taliban have allowed terrorist groups to exist freely on the Afghan soil since the takeover despite an agreement with the United States in which the group pledged to prevent Afghan territory from becoming a haven for terrorists. Following the US withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, American forces have been repositioned in neighboring countries like Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan, from where they can launch strikes like the one on al-Zawahiri. While US officials have insisted that the strike had hit only al-Zawahiri and no one else was killed or hurt, a drone strike in Kabul last year had killed 10 innocent civilians, including children. It was acknowledged as a mistake by the US authorities after media exposure. In any case, the killing of al-Zawahiri has raised questions about the ruling Taliban's actual intentions. The outfit had promised in the 2020 Doha Agreement on the terms of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan that they would not harbour al Qaida or IS members. The killing raises suspicions about the involvement of Taliban leaders in sheltering a mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks and one of the world's most-wanted fugitives.

Views expressed are personal