Wednesday 3 August 2022 01:24 AM How Ayman al-Zawahiri's FAMILY led CIA to world's most wanted terrorist trends now
Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has been one of the primary targets of various presidential administrations since even before the Egyptian doctor turned terrorist helped to mastermind 9/11.
On Monday, the US announced that the 21 years long search for one of the most wanted men in the world had ended a few days previously with a drone strike in Kabul.
The terrorism chief had been tracked by the CIA to a safe house in Kabul after he moved his wife, her daughter and kids, into a safe home into an affluent suburb in the Afghan capital.
A security official told reporters following the attack that it was the Egyptian jihadist's consistent 'pattern of life' that included periods when he would 'linger' on a balcony in the home overlooking the city.
This allowed agents to tailor an airstrike particularly for the purpose of taking al-Zawahiri out.
President Joe Biden told the nation after the strike: 'Now justice has been delivered and this terrorist leader is no more.'
This was at least the fifth time that the CIA has attempted to take out the 71-year-old.
This is the timeline laying out how the US government got their man:
Prior to 2022
Since 9/11 and the US conquest of Afghanistan in 2001, the al-Zawahiri was thought to have been residing in Taliban-friendly areas of Pakistan. His bodyguards at times even marrying into local tribes in order to solidify relationships.
At one point, al-Zawahiri was even suspected to be living in Karachi, the Pakistani capital. Although, on multiple occasions since 2001, bin Laden's mentor has gone to ground for so long, rumors persisted that he was dead.
In February 2003, officials believed that they were close to capturing al-Zawahiri as the chief met with another al-Qaeda figure in Peshawar, Pakistan.
The operation failed because agents did not have a confirmed exact location for the meeting until the day after it occurred, reported CNN in 2010.
A year later, an assassination attempt on the terrorism chief failed. The US bombed a mountainous region of South Waziristan in Pakistan where he was thought to be hiding.
Al-Zawahiri was injured in that bombing but survived.
In 2006, a US bombardment of an area in the North West Frontier Province, near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan was direct attempt on al-Zawahiri's life.
Al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian surgeon who had a $25 million bounty on his head, helped coordinate the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people
Osama Bin Laden, left, was killed in a military attack by U.S. Navy Seals more than a decade before Ayman Al-Zawahiri, right, was killed in a drone attack
Despite rumors that the US had killed the then second-in-command of al-Qaeda, he appeared in a video two weeks later saying that 'Bush nor all the powers on earth could bring his death one second closer.'
In 2009, a Jordanian doctor named Human al-Balawi killed seven CIA agents after promising them that he could lead them to al-Zawahiri.
During a meeting with his handlers at a base in Khost, Afghanistan, al-Balawi detonated a suicide vest, killing a total of eight people and injuring six others.
It's not clear if al-Balawi was acting on Al-Qaeda's behalf nor is it clear how many other times US officials felt they were close to the terrorist leader.
Early 2022
Early in 2022, senior intelligence figures in the Biden administration learned that al-Zawahri's wife, daughter and her children, had been moved to a safe house in the Sherpur district of Kabul.
The area was formerly the home of western embassies and charities prior to the Taliban's overthrow of the US-backed government in August 2021.
Speaking to the London Times, an employee of an agency formerly based in the Sherpur district said that they had been unable to return to their place of work since
