US intel located Zawahiri after he moved from Pak to Taliban-supported safe house in Kabul:US media
Hellfire missiles: US' sought-after secret weapon used to kill Ayman al-Zawahiri
US intelligence located reclusive alQaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri earlier this year in Afghanistan after he moved from Pakistan to a Taliban-supported safe house in a posh locality in downtown Kabul, the US media reported on Tuesday.
The 71-year-old Egyptian surgeon, who had a USD 25 million bounty on his head, was bin Laden's second-in-command during 9/11 attacks and took over as the head of al-Qaeda after his death. He remained a visible international symbol of the terror group, 11 years after the US killed bin Laden during a raid in Pakistan's Abbottabad in 2011.
After relentlessly seeking Zawahiri for years, the US intelligence community located him earlier this year.
US intelligence officials had determined that Zawahiri had moved from Pakistan to a Taliban-supported safe house in downtown Kabul. Zawahiri's wife and children had relocated there first, officials said. As US intelligence officials monitored them, they learned Zawahiri had joined his family, NBC News reported.
Once Zawahiri arrived at the safe house he never left, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters Monday on the operation.
US authorities spent months identifying a pattern of life, tracking his daily habits to avoid civilian casualties, the report said. Intelligence officials created a model of Zawahiri's safe house and used it to brief Biden on the risk to civilians, the senior administration official added. They tried to minimize risk to civilians by not threatening the integrity of the structure during the planned strike.
Asked whether Biden would have tolerated even a few civilian casualties, an administration official said there was no reason to expect any. The strike was so precise that it killed Zawahiri on a balcony without harming family members elsewhere in the house, the official said.
The US drone strike that killed al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri on the balcony of a safe house in downtown Kabul points to the use of secret Hellfire missiles by the CIA as there was no explosion and according to American President Joe Biden no civilian casualties either.
Widely-known Hellfire missiles are specially designed, secret missiles used to conduct pinpoint airstrikes that kill terrorist leaders with no explosion, drastically reducing damage and minimising the chances of civilian casualties. A Hellfire missile, which is a little more than five feet long and weighs just over 100 pounds (over 45kgs), typically leaves behind mangled, burned-out shells of vehicles, surrounded by debris and scorch marks over a large radius.