THE CNN identified what appears to be the house in Kabul, Afghanistan, hit by a Hellfire missile attack that killed Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri as he stood on the balcony.
The recognition was carried out by geolocating and verifying the authenticity of three photos that have been circulating on social networks since Sunday, in addition to using high-resolution archival satellite images.
The attack, which took place at 10:48 pm ET on Saturday (30) and in the early hours of Sunday morning (31) in Kabul, was authorized by US President Joe Biden, after weeks of meetings with his cabinet and top officials. counselors.
The offensive toppled the 71-year-old al-Qaida leader, who once served as Osama bin Laden’s personal physician and who rose to the top of the terrorist organization after US forces killed bin Laden in 2011.
THE CNN contacted the National Security Council for comment on the identification of the house, but did not receive an immediate response.
The house, located in the Sherpur neighborhood of the Afghan capital, is surrounded by several other houses and buildings to the north, south and west. Directly east of the house is Omaid High School.
Just under 300 meters southeast of the house is the UK Embassy in Kabul. According to the British Foreign Office, all diplomatic and consular staff are “temporarily withdrawn” from the country.
The house is in an area called the Green Zone, where most of the former Afghan government officials lived.
Zawahiri was sheltering in central Kabul to reunite with his family, Biden said in his Monday night speech announcing the attack, and was killed in what a senior government official described as “a bespoke airstrike.” accurate” using two Hellfire missiles.
Before giving the order to kill the terrorist leader, Biden wanted to intimately understand the neighborhood in which he was hiding.
Among the preparations was a small-scale model of Zawahiri’s hideout, built by intelligence officials and placed inside the White House Situation Room for Biden to examine as he debated his options.
The Sherpur area of Kabul was a former military base, but during the years of civil strife and the Taliban era in the 1990s it was barely used.
In 2003, the Afghan Ministry of Defense abandoned it and the government divided it into more than 50 lots, handing them over to powerful people, including government ministers and other high officials, as well as warlords and traffickers. Their houses soon gained the nickname “poppy palaces”.
After the fall of Ashraf Ghani’s government in August 2021, most homeowners in Sherpur fled the country and their homes were confiscated by the Taliban.
It is unclear who owns the house where Zawahiri was killed or if it is one of these confiscated houses.
Source: CNN Brasil
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