How did U.S. get to Al-Zawahiri’s hideout in Afghanistan?
Informed sources revealed, Tuesday, the manner in which Washington was able to reach the hideout and the hiding place of the former leader of the Al-Qaeda organization, Ayman Al-Zawahiri.
“This was done by taking advantage of a surveillance camera set up near his location by a private Afghan company”, the sources said.
Al-Zawahiri, who masterminded the September 11th, 2011 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, was assassinated by a US drone on a march near Kabul in late July.
A source familiar with the killing told the British newspaper The Independent on Tuesday that “the Taliban arrested several senior officials of a private company on charges of cooperating with the United States in uncovering al-Zawahiri’s whereabouts.”
Surveillance camera
“The Taliban have come to believe that the US was able to monitor Ayman al-Zawahiri using data from ACG, an Afghan private company,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.
The source stated, “A CCTV camera was installed for a private company (ACG) near the former Al-Qaeda leader’s residence in Kabul, on the pretext of the company that it wanted to monitor the employees of the company as they entered and exited the company building.”
“The Taliban believe that the US National Intelligence and Security Agency (CIA) was able to monitor Ayman al-Zawahiri using ACG data,” the source said.
“Mahmud Shah Habibi, the head of the independent Civil Aviation Authority under the former Afghan government, and a certain Akram are also among the detainees,” he said.
“Habibi was the manager of the private ACG company and the Taliban opened a spy case against him,” he said. “His case is now complicated.”
Mahmood Shah Habibi is an American citizen as well as an Afghan, the source said.
“The Taliban arrested his brother on August 10th without committing a crime,” Ahmad Shah Habibi, Mahmood Shah Habibi’s brother, told Voice of America Persian Radio.
“The people who came to the door of his brother’s house in Sitarak identified themselves as Taliban,” he said.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said he was investigating the disappearance of “Mahmood Shah Habibi”.
“The Taliban are trying to interrogate all the employees of this private company and that’s why some of these employees have led underground lives,” the source told The Independent.
No information has yet been received on the fate of the company’s employees, who are being held in a Taliban-controlled prison in the capital, Kabul.
On July 30, Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed after being attacked by a US drone in the diplomatic district of Sherpur in Kabul city.
Al-Zawahiri’s presence in the heart of the Afghan capital raised questions about the Taliban’s pledge not to harbor terrorists. The Taliban did not accept al-Zawahiri’s death in Kabul.
In the wake of the announcement of al-Zawahiri’s death, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said a team had been formed to investigate claims that al-Zawahiri was killed in a drone attack, but no signs of the former al-Qaeda leader were found in Kabul at the time.
Security tightened in Sherpur
After the drone attack on Ayman al-Zawahiri’s residence, the Taliban’s military presence in Sherpur district reached its highest level, and the Taliban did not allow reporters or media to get near where the former al-Qaeda leader was killed.
Ayman al-Zawahiri is known as the chief ideologue of al-Qaeda and the mastermind of the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Towers in New York. After the killing of Osama bin Laden, the leader and founder of al-Qaeda, in May 2011, he assumed the leadership of al-Qaeda.
The Taliban managed last year to overthrow the former Afghan government, which had the support of Western countries, especially the United States of America. During this period, concern increased about the expansion of the activities of terrorist groups in this country, especially ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
