Sherpur District, to the north of central Kabul, where al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed, lies at the western end of a huge former military base where British forces were besieged in the winter of 1879, during the second Anglo-Afghan war.
The parade ground, still a wide open area until 2001, was quickly built over by warlords allied to the U.S. when the Taliban were pushed out of power after the attacks of 9/11. I went there with a military commander who was transformed overnight into a building contractor as the plots were parcelled out and garish concrete villas rose out of the dust. Built by one set of warlords after 9/11, those Sherpur villas were seized by other warlords last August when the Taliban took power again.
It was on the balcony of one of those villas that al-Zawahiri stepped outside and was targeted by a CIA drone strike, as America demonstrated its ability to carry out ‘over the horizon’ attacks, despite not having overt assets on the ground. But that does nothing to excuse the Biden administration for its betrayal of Afghanistan and its people.
The discovery that the Emir of al-Qaeda, and previously Osama bin Laden’s deputy — a key player in the string of attacks on American targets in the late 1990s as well as 9/11 itself — was living almost openly in the centre of Kabul, exposes the hollowness at the heart of America’s withdrawal deal.
The deal, signed in Doha at the end of February 2020, just before Covid closed down the world, was never peace with honour.
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