trying to get more information about it. what can you tell us about this attack? anything more about the type of weapon that was used? and can you guarantee that no one was killed besides zawahiri? all good questions, brianna. so, look, this mission really took shape over the course of the last six, seven months. it was really sort of early this year as you heard the president say we got indications that mr. zawahiri had moved into afghanistan. so what we re able to do is stitch together some intelligence, based on the movements of his family, quite frankly, and then once we tracked them into kabul, we were able to then be able to track him and his efforts to reunite them. that led then to weeks if not several months, of making sure that we had the right guy, that this was, in fact, mr. zawahiri, and that this was in fact their residence and then, of course, developing a pattern of life. his habits, if and when he went outside, how often, on what days, for how long, all tha
wanted terrorist killed in a precision u.s. drone strike in afghanistan. zawahiri was one of the master planners of the 9/11 attacks. he was targeted as he stepped out on the balcony of a house where his family was hiding in downtown kabul. and this video, just obtained by cnn, shows the moments following the strike. you see heavy plumes of smoke billowing from the area. overnight security tightened in kabul. sources say president biden took great pains to prevent collateral damage from the strike. examining a scaled model of zawahiri s home before green lighting the mission. and this morning, the fbi updating its most wanted notice for zawahiri to deceased. let s bring in national security council coordinator for strategic communications at the white house, john kirby. sir, thank you so much for being with us. i know that certainly you are hailing this as a success today at the white house and we re
they will probably adjust some of the things that they do. we know that. we anticipated that. we ll adjust as well. and just finally, explain why this isn t just being right back where the u.s. was 9/11 with al qaeda being in kabul. my goodness, al qaeda is nowhere near the organization and the threat that it once was on 9/11. or even ten years ago when we killed bin laden. it is a vastly diminished terrorist network, and they have had their challenges. that doesn t mean, however, that we can just take the eye off the ball and forget about them. just like isis, isis is vastly diminished thanks to our efforts inside that coalition. it doesn t mean they haven t a viable threat. mr. zawahiri was posing a threat because he was actively encouraging his followers to plot and plan attacks against the homeland, against the united states, and that was all the justification we needed. but they are a vastly diminished threat. we re going to make sure they continue to be a vastly
trying to get more information about it. what can you tell us about this attack? anything more about the type of weapon that was used? and can you guarantee that no one was killed besides zawahiri? all good questions, brianna. so, look, this mission really took shape over the course of the last six, seven months. it was really sort of early this year as you heard the president say we got indications that mr. zawahiri had moved into afghanistan. so what we re able to do is stitch together some intelligence, based on the movements of his family, quite frankly, and then once we tracked them into kabul, we were able to then be able to track him and his efforts to reunite them. that led then to weeks if not several months, of making sure that we had the right guy, that this was, in fact, mr. zawahiri, and that this was in fact their residence and then, of course, developing a pattern of life. his habits, if and when he went outside, how often, on what days, for how long, all that
if i m an al qaeda leader in afghanistan now, i bet you i m thinking it is not quite the safe haven i once thought it was and i m sure that this is putting them on their back heels and we re going to have to watch and be vigilant as they try to adjust to what just happened on saturday night. jake sullivan says we re communicating directly with the taliban about their obligations not to allow al qaeda to use afghanistan as a basis for plotting. what does that look like? what is he saying? what is the white house saying? and what are the consequences of them not doing that? we have multiple channels to communicate with the taliban. and we re using those channels. we made it very clear that this was a violation, not that we believe, not that we think it was a violation of the doha agreement, which specifically says, commits them to not allowing afghanistan to be used as a safe haven or launching pad for attacks against the united states or other of our allies and partner and clearly b