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White House spokesman John Kirby said on Wednesday that Ayman al-Zawahiri may have been in Afghanistan since late last year. This extends the time that al Qaeda's leader has been in the war-torn country, which has been criticized for letting terrorists set up a safe haven there after the administration's disastrous withdrawal.
Al-Zawahiri took over as leader of al-Qaeda after Osama bin Laden died in 2011. Two Hellfire missiles were fired from a drone while he was standing on his balcony in the capital, Kabul, on Sunday, President Biden said in a speech from the White House.
Since April, US intelligence agencies said they had been keeping track of the movements of the man who planned the 9/11 terror attacks at his safe house in Kabul.
On Wednesday, Bill Hemmer from Fox News asked Kirby how long al-Zawahiri had been in Kabul.
“We think that he was in Kabul since, if not late last year, early this year. That was based on information that we had by being able to track his family — his family’s movements there, and then him wanting to reunite with them,” said Kirby, the former spokesman at the Pentagon.
“You’re saying he may have been in Kabul as long as last year?” Hemmer asked.
“Well, late last year. We think maybe as late as December. I don’t mean a whole year ago, probably, you know, over the last six, seven months. But that was an indication that we had,” Kirby responded.
“We had to verify that, and that was from long, painstaking, meticulous effort in the intelligence community to verify and validate the information we thought we had, and that took months to do,” he continued.
Republicans praised the operation to get rid of al-Zawahiri, but they wondered why the terror leader felt so comfortable living openly in Kabul for so long. They also blamed Biden's chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan last August for giving the Taliban control of the country, which gave al Qaeda a safe place to live again.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) responded to Biden’s address on Monday night to say that while al-Zawahiri may have been taken out, the rest of al Qaeda remains a potent force in Afghanistan.
“Contrary to what President Biden is saying tonight, our ability to combat growing terrorist threats in Afghanistan are on the margins. There are al Qaeda training camps emerging in Afghanistan like before 9/11,” the senator said in a Twitter posting.
“As I said when the Biden Administration withdrew all of our forces from Afghanistan, it was only a matter of time before the country became a safe haven for terrorism once again,” Graham added.
The GOP lawmakers referenced Biden’s comments defending his decision to pull US troops out of Afghanistan after 20 years.
“What interests do we have in Afghanistan, at this point, with al Qaeda gone?” Biden said last year.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said the Taliban were shielding al Qaeda in Afghanistan as they did before the Sept. 11 attacks.
“You can be sure Zawahiri wasn’t the only terrorist the Taliban are harboring,” Cornyn posted on Twitter Wednesday, linking to a New York Times story about Taliban rule since the withdrawal.
Kirby was asked on Fox News how many al-Qaeda terrorists were in Afghanistan. He couldn't give a specific number, but said, "We don't think it's a very, very large number, and we're keeping a close eye on it."
But he pushed back at suggestions that the administration claimed that the terror group was gone from Afghanistan after the pullout.
“I was very honest about the fact that we knew al Qaeda had some presence in Afghanistan even before we left, but we just didn’t have an exact fingertip view on how many,” he said.
“We’re starting to get a little bit more information now over the course of this last year. Obviously, we have more information, we were able to take out Mr. Zawahiri, but we would not assess that the number is very, very large,” he added.
Kirby also got into a heated argument Tuesday at the White House press briefing when he was asked about al Qaeda being able to hide out with the Taliban.
Peter Doocy of Fox News asked him about the Doha Agreement, in which the Taliban said they wouldn't let al Qaeda use Afghanistan as a safe haven.
“What are you going to do about it?” Doocy asked. “Are you waiting for a spectacular terrorist attack in the US to then say, ‘Oh, well, there’s terrorists in Afghanistan, now we can go get them’?”
”The strike itself shows how serious we are about accountability. It shows how serious we are about defending our interests. And we’re going to maintain — as I said at the outset, we’re going to maintain this over-the-horizon capability. In fact, I’d go so far as to say we’re going to continue to try to improve that capability going forward,” Kirby said.
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