A reading of the consequences of the killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul

KABUL

- Ayman al-Zawahiri, the second leader of Al-Qaeda and the successor to Osama bin Laden, was killed in the center of the Afghan capital, Kabul, in an air raid - carried out by US intelligence - which is the first of its kind after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Al-Zawahiri - wanted No. 1 in Washington - was able to hide from US forces for 11 years, despite the presence of US forces on the border strip between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The house that was targeted by the American march is located in the diplomatic district, a little far from the presidential palace and the British embassy in the capital, Kabul. Two of the top aides of outgoing Afghan President Ashraf Ghani lived in it. After Ghani fled the country, the al-Qaeda leader chose this house as his shelter.

undisclosed affinity

The writer and political researcher Hikmat Jalil told Al Jazeera Net, "During the negotiations between the United States and the Taliban movement in Doha, the latter confirmed that it had severed its relations with foreign jihadist organizations, and now it has been proven to everyone that this relationship - which can be described as historic - still exists until the movement dared to harbor al-Zawahiri in Kabul." ".

Sources close to the new Afghan government say that the family of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri arrived in the capital, Kabul, three months after the Taliban came to power, and settled in the most prestigious area in Kabul, and that the killing of the al-Qaeda leader in this way shows the closeness of the relationship between the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

A government source told Al-Jazeera Net, who preferred not to be named, that when you review all stages of the Taliban and the United States negotiations, you will not find there a statement in which the Taliban denounced al-Qaeda and its activity in the region, unlike the Islamic State, and al-Qaeda welcomed and congratulated the leader of the Taliban movement, Sheikh Hebatullah Akhundzadeh on victory. America and sign the agreement with it.

The US forces evacuated their bases and centers across Afghanistan at the end of August last year, but the Afghan airspace was under their control, and drones were flying around the clock on the border strip between Afghanistan and Pakistan under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

These planes carried out attacks in several Afghan provinces, and a source in the Afghan Ministry of Aviation and Transport says that "the presence of US drones on the border strip with Pakistan is not a secret to anyone, and that they were constantly flying in Afghan airspace."

mutual accusations

After the US strike in the capital, Kabul, Afghan government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid was quick to accuse the United States of violating the Doha Agreement and that Washington had violated national sovereignty, while US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken accused the Taliban movement of harboring the al-Qaeda leader and that this step opposes the Doha Agreement.

Hours after Zabihullah announced and confirmed that his country had been subjected to an American strike, without specifying the target, the United States announced the killing of Al-Zawahiri at his home in Kabul.

Political and strategic researcher Tariq Farhadi told Al Jazeera Net, "The Taliban movement's handling of the strike was not successful as a government, as its spokesman confirmed the strike without specifying the target, and this raises many questions, the most important of which is does the government know the whereabouts of al-Zawahiri? Al-Zawahiri, and she was hiding it from the international community."

More than 15 hours after the assassination of al-Qaeda leader al-Zawahiri in Kabul, the Afghan government has not commented on the American story, and a source in the Afghan interior told Al-Jazeera Net that "there is an important meeting that will be held at the level of the leadership of the Taliban movement and the Afghan government to evaluate and study the repercussions of al-Zawahiri's assassination in Kabul."

Taliban options

Observers believe that the Taliban cannot carry out any provocative action against the United States after targeting the al-Qaeda leader on its soil, because it does not want to repeat the experience of al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan;

So you will be satisfied with condemnation and denunciation.

The writer and political researcher Asad Karimi told Al Jazeera Net, "The Taliban will try to preserve its relations with the United States, and will not allow the assassination of Al-Zawahiri to spoil the relationship between the two parties. A real problem."

The Afghan government formed by the Taliban had confirmed that there were no foreign fighters in Afghanistan, but the killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri in the US raid embarrassed the Taliban movement in front of the Afghan people and the international community alike, and it turned out that the leaders of factions and armed movements are present in Afghanistan.

On this, the researcher in Islamic movements, Abdul Jalil Kaker, says to Al-Jazeera Net, "The killing of Al-Zawahiri in this way is a clear message to the leaders of the armed movements and factions that they cannot hide, and these will now think about their relationship with the Taliban, because the last American raid confirmed the penetration of the Taliban movement before." the United States,” he said.