VOLKSKRANT/DE GEVAARLIJKE PEN VAN ASTRID ESSED/INGEZONDEN STUK/4

Beste lezers,

Hierbij nog even een overzicht van de drie eerder aan u toegezonden

Ingezonden Stukken, die in een Grijs Verleden [tussen 2002-2004] door

de Volkskrant zijn gepubliceerd en door mij herontdekt.

EEN

TWEE

DRIE

Hierbij [voorlopig?] de laatste, die u ook weer zal verassen, denk ik

ENJOY

VOLKSKRANT

ASTRID ESSED

CRIMINALISERING

Criminalisering

Ik ben het niet eens met de criminalisering van de Arabisch Europese Liga (AEL) door de Liga en het Vlaams Blok impliciet op één lijn te stellen en te suggereren dat de AEL zou aanzetten tot jodenhaat (de Volkskrant, 28 november)….Amsterdam Astrid Essed3 december 2002, 00:00

Het Vlaams Blok is een extreem-rechtse beweging, die zowel racistisch als antisemitisch is, getuige zijn geregelde deelname aan ‘marsen’ van neo-nazi’s in Duitsland. Zonder het in alles eens te zijn met de AEL verwerp ik bovendien de beschuldiging dat ‘zij niet willen integreren’. Hun uitgangspunt is respect voor alle bevolkingsgroepen. Integratie houdt in participeren in de Belgische samenleving met respect voor de wet, maar met behoud van eigen identiteit, hetgeen het grondprincipe van integratie is.

De bewering dat de AEL achter het anti-joods geweld zou zitten dat na een anti-Israël demonstratie door een aantal Marokkaanse jongeren tegen joodse medeburgers is gepleegd, is nooit bewezen. Bij een soortgelijke demonstratie enkele weken later is door de eigen ordedienst direct tegen potentiële relschoppers opgetreden.

”Zawahiri was a wretched man, and few will mourn his passing. But legal judgment should not be biased by hindsight. The U.S. tried to kill Zawahiri at least twice before. Those strikes killed 76 children and 29 adults according to Reprieve. The U.S. claims that its latest strike killed no civilians. That may be. If so, it is only by sheer luck that the U.S. did not kill even more civilians for no reason that the law accepts.”

JUST SECURITY

TOP EXPERTS RAISE QUESTIONS REGARDING

LEGAL BASIS OF ZAWAHIRI STRIKE

4 AUGUST 2022

A note from co-editors-in-chief Tess Bridgeman and Ryan Goodman: Although Just Security is on hiatus this week, we wanted to be sure to examine and reflect on the U.S. airstrike that killed al Qaeda’s top leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri. We asked members of our board of editors to assess the US government’s strongest argument for the legal basis for the strike and any significant weaknesses or flaws in that argument. We invited them to consider international and domestic law. 

Brian Finucane, senior adviser with the U.S. Program at the International Crisis Group and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Reiss Center on Law and Security at NYU School of Law. Prior to joining Crisis Group in 2021, he served as an attorney-adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State.

As a matter of international law, the U.S. government would likely argue that Zawahiri was targeted as an enemy commander in the ongoing non-international armed conflict with al Qaeda.  Further, I would expect the U.S. government to claim that the strike in Kabul was a lawful measure of self-defense as the de-facto authorities were either unable or unwilling to effectively address the threat posed by al Qaeda.  

But such arguments raise questions: 

• Twenty years after 9/11, what threat to the United States does al Qaeda still pose, whether from Afghanistan or elsewhere? 
• Is the threat from al Qaeda such that the use of force in self-defense remains “necessary” as a matter of international law?  Or are other non-military tools sufficient to mitigate the threat such that force is no longer necessary? 
• Does the Biden administration have a theory for when the armed conflict with al Qaeda ends? If so, what is that theory?

The killing of Zawahiri also raises questions of domestic law and the future of the war on terror.  After two decades, what is al Qaeda for the purposes of the 2001 AUMF?  Which affiliates of al Qaeda are “associated forces” for the purposes of AUMF? Will the Biden administration publicly release the list of all groups it deems covered by the AUMF?

Professor Adil Haque, is Executive Editor at Just Security. He is also Professor of Law and Judge Jon O. Newman Scholar at Rutgers Law School, and author of Law and Morality at War (Oxford University Press): 

The U.S. will almost certainly argue that the strike was an exercise of its inherent right of self-defense under the U.N. Charter. The Obama administration took the position that the right of self-defense is triggered by an actual or imminent armed attack by a non-state armed group. Once triggered, the right of self-defense remains activated, and justifies the use of force, as long as “hostilities” with the group continue. Importantly, there is no requirement that further armed attacks are ongoing or imminent, so long as further attacks are expected at some point in the future. Relatedly, there is no requirement to seek the consent of the state on whose territory the strike will take place, if that state is deemed “unwilling or unable” to prevent the armed group from using its territory. That position was adopted by the Obama and Trump administrations, and there is no reason to think that the Biden administration will look elsewhere.

In my view, both aspects of the U.S. position are fundamentally flawed. There is no right to use force in self-defense absent an ongoing or imminent armed attack, and there is no right to use force on the territory of another state, without its consent, absent its responsibility for an ongoing or imminent armed attack. The U.S. has not claimed that Zawahiri was orchestrating an imminent armed attack that the strike preempted, nor has it alleged that the Afghan government is substantially involved in Al Qaeda’s ongoing operations. It appears that members of the Taliban regime may have provided Zawahiri with safe haven. But that alone is not enough to justify the strike.

Zawahiri was a wretched man, and few will mourn his passing. But legal judgment should not be biased by hindsight. The U.S. tried to kill Zawahiri at least twice before. Those strikes killed 76 children and 29 adults according to Reprieve. The U.S. claims that its latest strike killed no civilians. That may be. If so, it is only by sheer luck that the U.S. did not kill even more civilians for no reason that the law accepts.

Professor Oona Hathaway, is Executive Editor at Just Security. She is the Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law at Yale Law School, Professor of International Law and Area Studies at the Yale University MacMillan Center, Professor of the Yale University Department of Political Science, Director of the Yale Law School Center for Global Legal Challenges, and Counselor to the Dean at Yale Law School. She served as Special Counsel to the General Counsel of the Department of Defense:

From a domestic law perspective, the legal basis for the strike on Zawahiri is, most lawyers would agree, straightforward: The 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force, enacted mere days after the 9/11 attacks, authorizes the President to use all “necessary and appropriate force against those … organizations he determines planned … the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.” Zawahiri, as the leader of the organization that carried out the attacks—and a prominent figure in the organization on 9/11, falls squarely within that authority. That surface clarity, however, ignores a deeper question about whether that 2001 authorization has expired. There is no sunset clause in the 2001 AUMF, but Congress clearly did not contemplate an endless war when it enacted the law more than two decades ago. There is a strong argument that the authorization has effectively expired, though that argument has yet to win in court when raised by those who continue to be detained at Guantanamo Bay under the authority indirectly granted by the authorization. Indeed, the successful strike on Zawahiri is likely to lead to a new set of challenges to those detentions on the ground the conflict in which they were detained has now run its course.

 The international law basis for the strike is similarly easy on the surface and harder on deeper reflection. On the surface, the strike is justified as an act of “self defense” under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter and almost certainly is considered by the administration to fall within the Article 51 letter filed with the UN shortly after the attacks. But when we consider the fact that the attack on Zawahiri comes more than two decades after the 9/11 attacks, the legal argument gets harder to sustain. Granted, Al Qaeda has more fighters than it did on 9/11 despite two decades of our best efforts—during which we spent trillions of dollars—to defeat the group. But it’s far from clear that any of the affiliates have plans to attack the United States or that Zawahiri was involved in such plans if they do. Under international law, acts of self defense need to be aimed at averting active ongoing threats to the state undertaking the self defensive action (or, if it is an act of collective self defense, threats to a state that has requested that state’s assistance). There is also the issue of Afghanistan’s sovereignty. The Afghan government clearly did not consent to the strike. The United States has long sought to justify strikes against nonstate actors located in states that are “unable” or “unwilling” to address the threat they pose as falling within the scope of Article 51. But this theory has been explicitly endorsed by fewer than a dozen states. It may be conventional wisdom in Washington that such strikes are justified, but that conventional wisdom is one of many ways in which what is taken for granted in Washington is at a disconnect with traditional methods of international law. (Under a separate body of international law—international humanitarian law—the strike seems to have been clearly legal, assuming Zawahiri was a legitimate military target. According to current reporting, there was, remarkably, no collateral damage—which would be a testament to the careful planning, techniques, and technology developed over two decades of war.)

In short, the strike reflects the ambiguities inherent in the current U.S. counterterrorism program: It was at once a great success that falls squarely within widely accepted legal theories that have guided U.S. conduct for two decades and it demonstrates how flawed and strained those very same theories are.

Stephen Pomper, Chief of Policy at the International Crisis Group. During the Obama administration, he served as Special Assistant to the President and NSC Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights. He also served as Senior Director for African Affairs. Prior to moving to the NSC, he was the Assistant Legal Adviser for Political-Military Affairs at the Department of State. He is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Reiss Center on Law and Security at NYU School of Law:

The much celebrated recent U.S. strike that killed Ayman Zawahiri sheds some useful light on the Biden administration’s approach to the so-called the global war on terror (GWOT) including some of the tensions in the administration’s approach to warmaking.

On the one hand, President Biden pledged on the campaign trail to end what he referred to as “forever wars”. He pulled American troops from Afghanistan in the face of withering criticism; told the United Nations that the U.S. is no longer at war; and appears to have diminished the tempo of military counterterrorism operations considerably.

On the other hand, the Biden administration continues to engage in counterterrorism operations from a war footing. It has maintained the capacious legal interpretations that enabled the GWOT to branch out to countries far from Afghanistan; has spent no visible political capital to repeal or narrow the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force that undergirds this framework; and – as evidenced by the Zawahiri operation – continues to strike senior al-Qaeda leadership.

None of this is especially surprising. Candidate Biden and his team were always careful to hedge their commitments to end unproductive U.S. military entanglements in a way that left space for military counterterrorism, and have never shown much appetite for yielding the expansive authority that executive branch lore and practice – and congressional acquiescence – afford them in this space. But they also have other challenges, including most immediately a Russian war in Ukraine and a tense situation in the Taiwan strait. The result is arguably a sort of GWOT-lite, which has the full legal contours of the longstanding war on terror but a more limited op tempo that generally keeps strikes off the front pages, lowers the volume on criticism, and preserves the resort to force as an option for when policymakers feel it is needed. (Of course there is nothing inherently durable about the “lite” aspect of the current scheme: the same legal architecture could be used in a much more heavy-handed way by a different group of policymakers.)

Given who Zawahiri was, and so long as major reports of civilian casualties do not emerge, it is hard to imagine too much by way of criticism against the strike. But the operation does present some interesting questions that lawyers and commentators can be expected to probe. Among them:

• What facts could the U.S. present to make the case that the Taliban’s relationship to Zawahiri’s activities and whereabouts violated the 2020 Doha agreement (in which the Taliban committed to prevent any groups or individuals, including al-Qaeda, from “using its soil” for and “recruiting, training, and fundraising” “to threaten the security of the United States and its allies”). Beyond a passing comment by a White House official, will it publicly try to make that case?
• Under what theory did President Biden disclose an action reportedly taken by intelligence operatives under what appear to be covert authorities? Did the strike fall under the 2001 AUMF or is the U.S. deeming it an act of national self-defense and why?
• If the latter is the U.S. going to notify the United Nations or rely on its 2001 notification following the September 11 attacks?
• Looking ahead, does the U.S. consider itself to be still at war in Afghanistan for purposes of international and domestic law and if so against specifically what groups and on what bases?

The answers are unlikely to depart significantly from what this and past administrations have offered, which is a useful reminder that while September 11 continues to recede and the GWOT fades from view, the changes they wrought to the U.S. national security apparatus endure.

EINDE ARTIKEL

‘In targeting Ayman al Zawahiri, the CIA killed 76 children and 29 adults. They failed twice and Ayman al Zawahiri is reportedly still alive.”REPRIEVEYOU NEVER DIE TWICE: MULTIPLE KILLS INTHE US DRONE PROGRAM31 DECEMBER 2014

Each of us only lives once. It sometimes appears, however, that the covert US Kill List allows a man to die twice. Public reports suggest some men on the Kill List have ‘died’ as many as seven times.

The Kill List is a covert US programme that selects individual targets for assassination. The list is personally approved by President Obama and requires no public presentation of evidence or judicial oversight. Targets often die in covert drone strikes in foreign countries and are never notified of what they are accused to have done.

Information on the Kill List and drone strikes is limited to media reporting and anonymous leaks by US, Pakistani and Yemeni officials. Nevertheless, by sifting this information, we found 41 names of men who seemed to have achieved the impossible: to have ‘died,’ in public reporting, not just once, not just twice, but again and again. Reports indicate that each assassination target ‘died’ on average more than three times before their actual death.

This raises a stark question. With each failed attempt to assassinate a man on the Kill List, who filled the body bag in his place? In fact, it is more accurate to say ‘body bags’: many other lives are sacrificed in the effort to erase a name from the Kill List. In one case, it took seven drone strikes before the US killed its target. In those strikes, as many as 164 people died, including 11 children.

In total, as many as 1,147 people may have been killed during attempts to kill 41 men, accounting for a quarter of all possible drone strike casualties in Pakistan and Yemen. In Yemen, strikes against just 17 targets accounted for almost half of all confirmed civilian casualties. Yet evidence suggests that at least four of these 17 men are still alive. Similarly, in Pakistan, 221 people, including 103 children, have been killed in attempts to kill four men, three of whom are still alive and a fourth of whom died from natural causes.

One individual, Fahd al Quso, was reported killed in both Yemen and Pakistan. In four attempts to kill al Quso, 48 people potentially lost their lives.

Other key findings include:

• Twenty-four men were reported killed or targeted multiple times in Pakistan. Missed strikes on these men killed 874 people. They resulted in the deaths of 142 children.
• Eighteen men in Yemen were reported killed or targeted multiple times. Missile strikes on these men killed 273 others and accounted for almost half of all confirmed civilian casualties and 100% of all recorded child deaths.
• In targeting Ayman al Zawahiri, the CIA killed 76 children and 29 adults. They failed twice and Ayman al Zawahiri is reportedly still alive.
• In the six attempts it took the US to kill Qari Hussain, a deputy commander of the Tehrik- e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), 128 people were killed. including 13 children.
• Baitullah Mehsud was directly targeted as many as seven times, during which 164 people were killed, including 11 children.
• From 2004-2013, children suffered disproportionately in Pakistan. The pursuit of 14 targets killed 142 children. Only six of these children died in strikes that successfully killed their target (21% success rate).

EINDE ARTIKEL

[34]

ANALYSE: UITSCHAKELING AL-ZAWAHIRI

AL QAIDA ZWARE SLAG TOEGEDIEND DOOR DOOD

AL-ZAWAHIRI, MAAR BIDEN KAN NOG NIET OP ZIJN

LAUWEREN RUSTEN

Bert Lanting

2 AUGUSTUS 2022

ZIE VOOR GEHELE TEKST. NOOT 9

VOLKSKRANT

POSTUUM: AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI

ZELFS IN EIGEN KRING WERD AL-ZAWAHIRI, MET ZIJN BELEREND

ZWAAIENDE WIJSVINGER, ALS STEKELIG EN PEDANT ERVAREN

Carlijne Vos

2 AUGUSTUS 2022

ZIE VOOR GEHELE TEKST, NOOT 9

[35]

[35]

TRUTHOUT

BIDEN’S ASSASSINATION OF AL QAEDA LEADER AYMAN

AL-ZAWAHIRI WAS ILLEGAL

6 AUGUST 2022

ZIE VOOR GEHELE TEKST, NOOT 32

LAW AND THE AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI AIRSTRIKE: A DOZEN QS & A’S

3 AUGUST 2022

ZIE VOOR GEHELE TEKST, NOOT 23

[36]

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

UKRAINE: UKRAINIAN FIGHTING TACTICS ENDANGER

CIVILIANS

4 AUGUST 2022

• Military bases set up in residential areas including schools and hospitals 
• Attacks launched from populated civilian areas
• Such violations in no way justify Russia’s indiscriminate attacks, which have killed and injured countless civilians

Ukrainian forces have put civilians in harm’s way by establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas, including in schools and hospitals, as they repelled the Russian invasion that began in February, Amnesty International said today. 

Such tactics violate international humanitarian law and endanger civilians, as they turn civilian objects into military targets. The ensuing Russian strikes in populated areas have killed civilians and destroyed civilian infrastructure. 

“We have documented a pattern of Ukrainian forces putting civilians at risk and violating the laws of war when they operate in populated areas,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General. 

“Being in a defensive position does not exempt the Ukrainian military from respecting international humanitarian law.”

Not every Russian attack documented by Amnesty International followed this pattern, however. In certain other locations in which Amnesty International concluded that Russia had committed war crimes, including in some areas of the city of Kharkiv, the organization did not find evidence of Ukrainian forces located in the civilian areas unlawfully targeted by the Russian military.

Between April and July, Amnesty International researchers spent several weeks investigating Russian strikes in the Kharkiv, Donbas and Mykolaiv regions. The organization inspected strike sites; interviewed survivors, witnesses and relatives of victims of attacks; and carried out remote-sensing and weapons analysis. 

Throughout these investigations, researchers found evidence of Ukrainian forces launching strikes from within populated residential areas as well as basing themselves in civilian buildings in 19 towns and villages in the regions. The organization’s Crisis Evidence Lab has analyzed satellite imagery to further corroborate some of these incidents.

Most residential areas where soldiers located themselves were kilometres away from front lines. Viable alternatives were available that would not endanger civilians – such as military bases or densely wooded areas nearby, or other structures further away from residential areas. In the cases it documented, Amnesty International is not aware that the Ukrainian military who located themselves in civilian structures in residential areas asked or assisted civilians to evacuate nearby buildings – a failure to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians.

Launching strikes from populated civilian areas 

Survivors and witnesses of Russian strikes in the Donbas, Kharkiv and Mykolaiv regions told Amnesty International researchers that the Ukrainian military had been operating near their homes around the time of the strikes, exposing the areas to retaliatory fire from Russian forces. Amnesty International researchers witnessed such conduct in numerous locations.

International humanitarian law requires all parties to a conflict to avoid locating, to the maximum extent feasible, military objectives within or near densely populated areas. Other obligations to protect civilians from the effects of attacks include removing civilians from the vicinity of military objectives and giving effective warning of attacks that may affect the civilian population. 

The mother of a 50-year-old man killed in a rocket attack on 10 June in a village south of Mykolaiv told Amnesty International: “The military were staying in a house next to our home and my son often took food to the soldiers. I begged him several times to stay away from there because I was afraid for his safety. That afternoon, when the strike happened, my son was in the courtyard of our home and I was in the house. He was killed on the spot. His body was ripped to shreds. Our home was partially destroyed.” Amnesty International researchers found military equipment and uniforms at the house next door.

Mykola, who lives in a tower block in a neighbourhood of Lysychansk (Donbas) that was repeatedly struck by Russian attacks which killed at least one older man, told Amnesty International: “I don’t understand why our military is firing from the cities and not from the field.” Another resident, a 50-year-old man, said: “There is definitely military activity in the neighbourhood. When there is outgoing fire, we hear incoming fire afterwards.” Amnesty International researchers witnessed soldiers using a residential building some 20 metres from the entrance of the underground shelter used by the residents where the older man was killed.

In one town in Donbas on 6 May, Russian forces used widely banned and inherently indiscriminate cluster munitions over a neighbourhood of mostly single or two-storey homes where Ukrainian forces were operating artillery. Shrapnel damaged the walls of the house where Anna, 70, lives with her son and 95-year-old mother. 

Anna said: “Shrapnel flew through the doors. I was inside. The Ukrainian artillery was near my field… The soldiers were behind the field, behind the house… I saw them coming in and out… since the war started… My mother is… paralyzed, so I couldn’t flee.”

In early July, a farm worker was injured when Russian forces struck an agricultural warehouse in the Mykolaiv area. Hours after the strike, Amnesty International researchers witnessed the presence of Ukrainian military personnel and vehicles in the grain storage area, and witnesses confirmed that the military had been using the warehouse, located across the road from a farm where civilians are living and working.

While Amnesty International researchers were examining damage to residential and adjacent public buildings in Kharkiv and in villages in Donbas and east of Mykolaiv, they heard outgoing fire from Ukrainian military positions nearby.

In Bakhmut, several residents told Amnesty International that the Ukrainian military had been using a building barely 20 metres across the street from a residential high-rise building. On 18 May, a Russian missile struck the front of the building, partly destroying five apartments and damaging nearby buildings. Kateryna, a resident who survived the strike, said: “I didn’t understand what happened. [There were] broken windows and a lot of dust in my home… I stayed here because my mother didn’t want to leave. She has health problems.”

Three residents told Amnesty International that before the strike, Ukrainian forces had been using a building across the street from the bombed building, and that two military trucks were parked in front of another house that was damaged when the missile hit. Amnesty International researchers found signs of military presence in and outside the building, including sandbags and black plastic sheeting covering the windows, as well as new US-made trauma first aid equipment.

“We have no say in what the military does, but we pay the price,” a resident whose home was also damaged in the strike told Amnesty International.

Military bases in hospitals

Amnesty International researchers witnessed Ukrainian forces using hospitals as de facto military bases in five locations. In two towns, dozens of soldiers were resting, milling about, and eating meals in hospitals. In another town, soldiers were firing from near the hospital.

A Russian air strike on 28 April injured two employees at a medical laboratory in a suburb of Kharkiv after Ukrainian forces had set up a base in the compound.

Using hospitals for military purposes is a clear violation of international humanitarian law.

Military bases in schools

The Ukrainian military has routinely set up bases in schools in towns and villages in Donbas and in the Mykolaiv area. Schools have been temporarily closed to students since the conflict  began, but in most cases the buildings were located close to populated civilian neighbourhoods 

At 22 out of 29 schools visited, Amnesty International researchers either found soldiers using the premises or found evidence of current or prior military activity – including the presence of military fatigues, discarded munitions, army ration packets and military vehicles. 

Russian forces struck many of the schools used by Ukrainian forces. In at least three towns, after Russian bombardment of the schools, Ukrainian soldiers moved to other schools nearby, putting the surrounding neighbourhoods at risk of similar attacks.

In a town east of Odesa, Amnesty International witnessed a broad pattern of Ukrainian soldiers using civilian areas for lodging and as staging areas, including basing armoured vehicles under trees in purely residential neighbourhoods, and using two schools located in densely populated residential areas. Russian strikes near the schools killed and injured several civilians between April and late June – including a child and an older woman killed in a rocket attack on their home on 28 June. 

In Bakhmut, Ukrainian forces were using a university building as a base when a Russian strike hit on 21 May, reportedly killing seven soldiers. The university is adjacent to a high-rise residential building which was damaged in the strike, alongside other civilian homes roughly 50 metres away. Amnesty International researchers found the remains of a military vehicle in the courtyard of the bombed university building.

International humanitarian law does not specifically ban parties to a conflict from basing themselves in schools that are not in session. However, militaries have an obligation to avoid using schools that are near houses or apartment buildings full of civilians, putting these lives at risk, unless there is a compelling military need. If they do so, they should warn civilians and, if necessary, help them evacuate. This did not appear to have happened in the cases examined by Amnesty International. 

Armed conflicts seriously hamper children’s right to education, and military use of schools can result in destruction that further deprives children of this right once the war ends. Ukraine is one of 114 countries that have endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration, an agreement to protect education amid armed conflict, which allows parties to make use of abandoned or evacuated schools only where there is no viable alternative. 

Indiscriminate attacks by Russian forces 

Many of the Russian strikes that Amnesty International documented in recent months were carried out with inherently indiscriminate weapons, including internationally banned cluster munitions, or with other explosive weapons with wide area effects. Others used guided weapons with varying levels of accuracy; in some cases, the weapons were precise enough to target specific objects.

The Ukrainian military’s practice of locating military objectives within populated areas does not in any way justify indiscriminate Russian attacks. All parties to a conflict must at all times distinguish between military objectives and civilian objects and take all feasible precautions, including in choice of weapons, to minimize civilian harm. Indiscriminate attacks which kill or injure civilians or damage civilian objects are war crimes.

“The Ukrainian government should immediately ensure that it locates its forces away from populated areas, or should evacuate civilians from areas where the military is operating. Militaries should never use hospitals to engage in warfare, and should only use schools or civilian homes as a last resort when there are no viable alternatives,” said Agnès Callamard. 

Amnesty International contacted the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence with the findings of the research on 29 July 2022. At the time of publication, they had not yet responded.

EINDE STATEMENT AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

STATEMENT ON PUBLICATION OF PRESS RELEASE ON

UKRAINIAN FIGHTING TACTICS

7 AUGUST 2022

Amnesty International deeply regrets the distress and anger that our press release on the Ukrainian military’s fighting tactics has caused. Since Russian’s invasion began in February 2022, Amnesty International has been rigorously documenting and reporting on war crimes and violations committed in Ukraine, speaking to hundreds of victims and survivors whose stories illuminate the brutal reality of Russia’s war of aggression. We have challenged the world to demonstrate its solidarity with Ukrainians through concrete action, and we will continue to do so.  

Amnesty International’s priority in this and in any conflict is ensuring that civilians are protected; indeed, this was our sole objective when releasing this latest piece of research. While we fully stand by our findings, we regret the pain caused and wish to clarify a few crucial points. 

In our press release, we documented how in all 19 of the towns and villages we visited, we found instances where Ukrainian forces had located themselves right next to where civilians were living, thereby potentially putting them at risk from incoming Russian fire. We made this assessment based on the rules of international humanitarian law (IHL), which require all parties to a conflict to avoid locating, to the maximum extent feasible, military objectives within or near densely populated areas. The laws of war exist in part to protect civilians, and it is for this reason that Amnesty International urges governments to comply with them. 

This does not mean that Amnesty International holds Ukrainian forces responsible for violations committed by Russian forces, nor that the Ukrainian military is not taking adequate precautions elsewhere in the country. 

We must be very clear: Nothing we documented Ukrainian forces doing in any way justifies Russian violations. Russia alone is responsible for the violations it has committed against Ukrainian civilians. Amnesty’s work over the last six months and our multiple briefings and reports on Russia’s violations and war crimes reflect their scale and the gravity of their impact on civilians. 

Amnesty International wrote to the Ukrainian government detailing our findings on 29 July. In our letter, we included GPS coordinates and other sensitive information about the locations, including schools and hospitals, where we had documented Ukrainian forces basing themselves among civilians. We did not make this information public in our press release due to the security risks it would pose to both Ukrainian forces and to the civilians we interviewed. 

Amnesty International is not attempting to give the Ukrainian military detailed instructions regarding how they should operate – but we call on the relevant authorities to abide by their international humanitarian obligations in full. 

Amnesty International’s priority will always be ensuring that civilians’ lives and human rights are protected during conflict.

EINDE STATEMENT AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

30]

GLOBAL TIMES

US KILLS QAEDA LEADER WITH DRONE STRIKE THAT

VIOLATES AFGHANISTAN’S SOVEREIGNTY

2 AUGUST 2022

A spokesperson for the Afghan Taliban on Tuesday condemned a US military strike on a residential house in Kabul, in which the US claimed al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed. Chinese experts said the so-called anti-terrorist action is a violation of the territorial sovereignty of Afghanistan and may be a strategy to gain political points at the upcoming midterm elections. 

The spokesperson for Afghan Taliban Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed on Tuesday in a statement that the airstrike on a house in the Shirpur area in Kabul was carried out by US drones, and called it “a clear violation of international principles and the Doha Agreement,” which the US signed with the Taliban in 2020 that led to the withdrawal of US forces.

US President Joe Biden announced on Monday that the US “successfully concluded an airstrike in Kabul that killed the emir of al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri,” and claimed that “now justice has been delivered,” according to a White House statement.

The US did not alert Taliban officials ahead of the strike, reported CNN. 

The White House statement claimed that none of Ayman al-Zawahiri’s family members were hurt, and there were no civilian casualties.  

Al-Zawahri was on the balcony of his house on Sunday when two Hellfire missiles were launched from an unmanned drone killing him, according to AP News. 

However, doubts are raised on the authenticity of such claims.  Li Wei, an expert on national security at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, said the drone attack in a densely populated area could have caused damage to surrounding buildings or even casualties among local residents considering the large impact of the Hellfire missiles. 

Experts said the US military attack was a violation of the territorial sovereignty of Afghanistan. 

“Any military activities and strikes within the territory of a country without first informing its government will constitute a violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country no matter what the legitimacy is,” Li told the Global Times on Tuesday.

The Taliban’s statement said Afghanistan “strongly condemns this attack on any cause.” 

The US has once again openly trampled on Afghan territorial sovereignty after its troops’ withdrawal in 2021, which proved that the country has “never really changed” despite its commitment. The strike aimed to show that it still has unmatched influence in Afghan affairs and to expunge the humiliation of having to leave Afghanistan, said a Beijing-based expert on international affairs who requested anonymity.

“The two-decade US-led war in Afghanistan is one of the main reasons why the country is still vulnerable to terrorism. The political chaos and economic depression in Afghanistan have made the whole country and even the region spin out of control for a long time, which has become a hotbed of terrorism and led to Afghanistan becoming a stronghold for many terrorist organizations,” said the expert. 

Some experts suspect the airstrike against Ayman al-Zawahiri came because the critical US midterm elections are close. The country has historically conducted anti-terrorism operations as a political tool to serve its political interests at home, Li said. 

Li added the solutions to eradicating terrorism come from addressing Afghan domestic issues, such as economic issues and people’s livelihoods, which the US is responsible for. 

The US is widely criticized in the world for illegally freezing $7 billion Afghan central bank assets. The international community has urged the US to unfreeze and return the money that belongs to the Afghan people in full to help overcome the humanitarian crisis in the country especially after a massive earthquake in June. 

EINDE ARTIKEL

[31]

4) Did international law require the U.S. to get permission from the Taliban to conduct an airstrike in Afghanistan?

As a general proposition, “each State has complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its territory.”  In this instance, the situation is more complicated in that while the Taliban has become the de facto rulers of Afghanistan, no country has formally recognized them.  Nevertheless, they have objected to the strike.

LAW AND THE AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI AIRSTRIKE: A DOZEN QS & A’S

3 AUGUST 2022

ZIE VOOR GEHELE TEKST, NOOT 23

”No recognition

No country has yet recognized the Taliban as legitimate rulers of the country, mainly over their harsh treatment of Afghan women and girls.”

VOANEWS

TALIBAN SAY US IS ”BIGGEST HURDLE” TO DIPLOMATIC

RECOGNITION

ISLAMABAD — 

Afghanistan’s Taliban have alleged the United States is blocking their way to securing international recognition for the Islamist group’s new government in Kabul.

The insurgent-turned-ruling group seized power last August and installed an all-male interim administration following the end of almost 20 years of U.S.-led foreign military intervention in the war-torn South Asian country.

“As far as recognition by foreign countries is concerned, I think the United States is the biggest obstacle,” chief Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said when asked to explain whether his group’s policies or any country was responsible for the delay in winning the legitimacy.

“It [America] does not allow other countries to move in this direction and has itself not taken any step on this count either,” he said, while responding to reporters’ questions via a Taliban-run WhatsApp group for reporters.

Mujahid claimed that the Taliban had met “all the requirements” for their government to be given diplomatic recognition.

He asserted all countries, including the United States, need to realize that political engagement with the Taliban is in “everyone’s interest.” It would allow the world to formally discuss “the grievances” they have with the Taliban.

Mujahid insisted Taliban leaders “want better” bilateral ties with the U.S. in line with the agreement the two countries signed in Doha, Qatar, in February 2020. Washington also needs to move toward establishing better ties with Kabul, he said.

“We were enemies and fighting the United States so long as it had occupied Afghanistan. That war has ended now.”

No recognition

No country has yet recognized the Taliban as legitimate rulers of the country, mainly over their harsh treatment of Afghan women and girls. The group is also being pressed to govern the country through a broad-based political system where all Afghan groups have their representation to ensure long-term national stability.

Since taking control of Afghanistan 10 months ago, the Taliban have suspended secondary education for most teenage girls and prevented female staff in certain government departments from returning to their duties.

The Ministry for Vice and Virtue, tasked with interpreting and enforcing the Taliban’s version of Islam, has ordered women to wear face coverings in public. Women are barred from traveling beyond 70 kilometers unless accompanied by a male relative.

The Taliban have rejected calls for removing the curbs on women and Mujahid also defended them. “The orders… regarding women are in accordance with [Islamic] Shariah, and these are the rules of Shariah,” he asserted.

The Taliban are “religiously” obliged to implement Islamic Sharia to counter practices that Islam prohibits, Mujahid said, without elaborating.

“Hopefully Afghan women will also not make demands for things that are against the principles of Islam.”

Afghanistan’s immediate neighbors and regional countries also have urged Taliban authorities to ease their restrictions on women before they could consider opening formal ties with Kabul.

“[An] inclusive ethnopolitical government should be the first step toward this. We make no secret of this, and we say so outright to our Afghan partners,” Zamir Kabulov, Russian special envoy for Afghanistan, said earlier this week, when asked whether Moscow was close to giving the Taliban legitimacy.

Additionally, scholars in many Islamic countries have disapproved of the Taliban’s ban on female education and other policies limiting women’s access to public life.

Al-Qaida presence

Mujahid claimed neither al-Qaida nor any of its members are present in the country, saying they all left Afghanistan for their native countries after the October 2001 U.S.-led military invasion.

Washington blames leaders of the terrorist network for plotting the September 11, 2001, attacks on America from the then-Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

At the time, only three countries — Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — had recognized the Taliban. During their rule from 1996-2001, the group had completely banned women from public life and girls from receiving an education, leading to Afghanistan’s diplomatic isolation.

Mujahid reiterated Kabul’s resolve that it will not allow anyone to threaten the U.S. and its allies by using Afghan soil. “We are ready for this, but only if further steps are taken to build mutual trust and strengthen political ties.”

A United Nations report said last month the Taliban continued to maintain close ties with al-Qaida, pointing to the reported presence of the network’s “core leadership” in eastern Afghanistan, including its leader, Ayman al-Zawahri.

The report noted, however, that neither al-Qaida nor the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) “is believed to be capable of mounting international attacks before 2023 at the earliest, regardless of their intent or of whether the Taliban acts to restrain them.”

[32]

[32]

TRUTHOUT

BIDEN’S ASSASSINATION OF AL QAEDA LEADER AYMAN

AL-ZAWAHIRI WAS ILLEGAL

6 AUGUST 2022

President Joe Biden’s assassination of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan was illegal under both U.S. and international law. After the CIA drone strike killed Zawahiri on August 2, Biden declared, “People around the world no longer need to fear the vicious and determined killer.” What we should fear instead is the dangerous precedent set by Biden’s unlawful extrajudicial execution.

In addition to being illegal, the killing of Zawahiri also occurred in a moment when the United Nations had already determined that people in the U.S. had little to fear from him. As a United Nations report released in July concluded, “Al Qaeda is not viewed as posing an immediate international threat from its safe haven in Afghanistan because it lacks an external operational capability and does not currently wish to cause the Taliban international difficulty or embarrassment.”

Just as former president Barack Obama stated that “Justice has been done” after he assassinated Osama bin Laden, Biden said, “Now justice has been delivered” when he announced the assassination of Zawahiri.

Retaliation, however, does not constitute justice.

Targeted, or political, assassinations are extrajudicial executions. They are deliberate and unlawful killings meted out by order of, or with acquiescence of, a government. Extrajudicial executions are implemented outside a judicial framework.

The fact that Zawahiri did not pose an imminent threat is precisely why his assassination was illegal.

Zawahiri’s Assassination Violated International Law

Extrajudicial executions are prohibited by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which the United States has ratified, making it part of U.S. law under the Constitution’s supremacy clause. Article 6 of the ICCPR states, “Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.” In its interpretation of Article 6, The UN Human Rights Committee opined that all human beings are entitled to the protection of the right to life “without distinction of any kind, including for persons suspected or convicted of even the most serious crimes.”

“Outside the context of active hostilities, the use of drones or other means for targeted killing is almost never likely to be legal,” tweeted Agnès Callamard, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. “Intentionally lethal or potentially lethal force can only be used where strictly necessary to protect against an imminent threat to life.” In order to be lawful, the United States would need to demonstrate that the target “constituted an imminent threat to others,” Callamard said.

Moreover, willful killing is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, punishable as a war crime under the U.S. War Crimes Act. A targeted killing is lawful only when deemed necessary to protect life, and no other means (including apprehension or nonlethal incapacitation) is available to protect life.

Zawahiri’s Assassination Violated U.S. Law

The drone strike that killed Zawahiri also violated the War Powers Resolution, which lists three situations in which the president can introduce U.S. Armed Forces into hostilities:

First, pursuant to a congressional declaration of war, which has not occurred since World War II. Second, in “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.” (Zawahiri’s presence in Afghanistan more than 20 years after the September 11, 2001, attacks did not constitute a “national emergency.”) Third, when there is “specific statutory authorization,” such as an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF).

In 2001, Congress adopted an AUMF that authorized the president to use military force against individuals, groups and countries that had contributed to the 9/11 attacks “in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”

Zawahiri was one of a small circle of people widely believed to have planned the 2001 hijacking of four airplanes, three of which were flown into the Pentagon and World Trade Center buildings. But since he did not pose “an immediate international threat” before the U.S. targeted him for assassination, he should have been arrested and brought to justice in accordance with the law.

The attack against Zawahiri violated Obama’s targeting rules, which required that the target pose a “continuing imminent threat.” Although Donald Trump relaxed Obama’s rules, Biden is conducting a secret review to establish his own standards for targeting killing.

Biden Continues to Launch Illegal Drone Strikes

In spite of the Biden administration’s claim that no civilians were killed during the strike on Zawahiri, there has been no independent evidence to support that assertion.

The assassination of Zawahiri came nearly a year after Biden launched an illegal strike as he withdrew U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Ten civilians were killed in that attack. The U.S. Central Command admitted the strike was “a tragic mistake” after an extensive New York Times investigation put a lie to the prior U.S. declaration that it was a “righteous strike.”

Biden declared that although he was withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan, he would mount “over-the-horizon” attacks from outside the country even without troops on the ground. We can expect the Biden administration to conduct future illegal drone strikes that kill civilians.

The 2001 AUMF has been used to justify U.S. military actions in 85 countries. Congress must repeal it and replace it with a new AUMF specifically requiring that any use of force comply with U.S. obligations under international law.

In addition, Congress should revisit the War Powers Resolution and explicitly limit the president’s authority to use force to that which is necessary to repel a sudden or imminent attack.

Finally, the United States must end its “global war on terror” once and for all. Drone strikes terrorize and kill countless civilians and make us more vulnerable to terrorism.

EINDE ARTIKEL TRUTHOUT

[33]

BBC

AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI: HOW US STRIKE COULD

KILL AL QAEDA LEADER-BUT NOT HIS FAMILY

Just over an hour after sunrise on 31 July, long-time al-Qaeda boss Ayman al-Zawahiri walked out onto the balcony of a downtown Kabul compound – reportedly a favourite post-prayer activity of the veteran Egyptian jihadist.

It would be the last thing he would do.

At 06:18 local time (01:38 GMT), two missiles slammed into the balcony, killing the 71-year-old but leaving his wife and daughter unscathed inside. All the damage from the strike appears to be centred on the balcony.

How was it possible to strike so precisely? In the past the US has faced criticism for strikes and targeting errors that have killed civilians.

But in this case, here’s how the type of missile, and a close study of Zawahiri’s habits, made it happen – and why more strikes could follow.

Laser accuracy

The type of missile used was key – and these were said by US officials to be drone-fired Hellfires – a type of air-to-surface missile that has become a fixture of US counter-terrorism operations overseas in the decades since the 11 September 2001 attacks.

The missile can be fired from a variety of platforms, including helicopters, ground vehicles, ships and fixed wing aircraft – or, in Zawahiri’s case, from an unmanned drone.

The US is believed to have used Hellfires to kill Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad in early 2020, and the British-born Islamic State jihadist known as “Jihadi John” in Syria in 2015.

Among the main reasons for the Hellfire’s repeated use is its precision.

When a missile is launched from a drone, a weapons operator – sometimes sitting in an air-conditioned control room as far away as the continental US – sees a live video stream of the target, which the drone’s camera sensors feed back via satellite.

Using a set of “targeting brackets” on the screen, the camera operator is then able to “lock up” the target and point a laser at it. Once the missile is fired, it follows the path of that laser until striking the target.

There are clear, sequential procedures the crew operating the drone must follow before taking action, to minimise the risk of civilian casualties. In past US military or CIA strikes, this has included calling on military lawyers for consultations before the order to fire is given.

Professor William Banks, an expert on targeted killings and the founder of the Syracuse University Institute for Security Policy and Law, said that officials would have had to balance the risk of civilian deaths with the value of the target.

The Zawahiri strike, he added, “sounds like a model application” of the process.

“It sounds like they were very careful and deliberate in this instance to find him in a location and at a time when they could hit just him and not harm any other person,” Prof Banks said.

In the case of the Zawahiri strike, it has been suggested, but not confirmed, that the US also used a relatively unknown version of the Hellfire – the R9X – which deploys six blades to slice through targets using its kinetic energy.

In 2017, another al-Qaeda leader and one of Zawahiri’s deputies, Abu Khayr al-Masri, was reportedly killed with an R9X Hellfire in Syria. Photos of his vehicle taken after the strike showed that the missile had cut a hole in the roof and shredded its occupants, but without signs of an explosion or any further destruction to the vehicle.

US tracked Zawahiri’s ‘balcony habit’

Details are still emerging about what intelligence the US gathered before launching the Kabul strike.

In the aftermath of the attack, however, US officials said they had enough information to understand Zawahiri’s “pattern of life” at the house – such as his balcony habit.

This suggests US spies had been watching the house for weeks, if not months.

Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior official at the CIA, told the BBC that it is likely that a variety of intelligence methods were used before the strike, including spies on the ground and signals intelligence.

Some have also speculated that US drones or aircraft took turns monitoring the location for weeks or months, unheard and unseen from the ground below.

“You need something that’s near certainty that it is the individual, and it also has to be done in a collateral free environment, meaning no civilian casualties,” he said. “It takes a lot of patience.”

The Zawahiri strike, Mr Polymeropoulos added, benefited from the US intelligence community’s decades of experience tracking down individual al-Qaeda figures and other terrorist targets.

“We are outstanding at this. It’s something that the US government has gotten very good at over 20 years,” he said. “And Americans are far safer for it.”

However, US operations of this kind do not always go according to plan. On 29 August 2021, a drone strike on a car just north of Kabul airport, intended to target a local branch of the Islamic State group, killed 10 innocent people instead. The Pentagon acknowledged that a “tragic mistake” had been made.

Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies who has been tracking US drone strikes for many years, said that the Zawahiri strike was likely “much more difficult” than previous killings to execute, given the absence of any US government presence or assets nearby.

Past drone strikes against nearby Pakistan, for example, were flown from Afghanistan, while strikes against Syria would have been conducted from friendly territory in Iraq.

“[In those places] it was far easier for the US to reach those areas. It had assets on the ground. This was far more complicated,” he said. “This is the first strike against al-Qaeda or the Islamic State in Afghanistan since the US left. This isn’t a common occurrence.”

Could this happen again?

Mr Roggio said he “wouldn’t be surprised” if similar strikes against al-Qaeda targets take place in Afghanistan again.

“There is no dearth of targets,” he said. “The potential next leaders [of al-Qaeda] will very likely be moving to Afghanistan, if they’re not there already.”

“The question is if the US still has the ability to do this with ease, or is it going to be a difficult process?” he added.

EINDE ARTIKEL BBC

[29]

THE NEW YORK TIMES

US SAYS AL QAEDA HAS NOT REGROUPED IN AFGHANISTAN

A new intelligence assessment of the Al Qaeda threat was prepared after a drone strike killed Ayman al-Zawahri, the group’s leader. But some outside counterterrorism specialists said it was overly optimistic.

WASHINGTON — American spy agencies have concluded in a new intelligence assessment that Al Qaeda has not reconstituted its presence in Afghanistan since the U.S. withdrawal last August and that only a handful of longtime Qaeda members remain in the country.

The terror group does not have the ability to launch attacks from the country against the United States, the assessment said. Instead, it said, Al Qaeda will rely on, at least for now, an array of loyal affiliates outside the region to carry out potential terrorist plots against the West.

But several counterterrorism analysts said the spy agencies’ judgments represented an optimistic snapshot of a complex and fast-moving terrorist landscape. The assessment, a declassified summary of which was provided to The New York Times, represents the consensus views of the U.S. intelligence agencies.

“The assessment is substantially accurate, but it’s also the most positive outlook on a threat picture that is still quite fluid,” said Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former top U.N. counterterrorism official.

The assessment was prepared after Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s top leader, was killed in a C.I.A. drone strike in Kabul last month. The death of al-Zawahri, one of the world’s most wanted terrorist leaders, after a decades-long manhunt was a major victory for President Biden, but it raised immediate questions about al-Zawahri’s presence in Afghanistan a year after Mr. Biden withdrew all American forces, clearing the way for the Taliban to regain control of the country.

Republicans have said that the president’s pullout has endangered the United States. The fact the Qaeda leader felt safe enough to return to the Afghan capital, they argue, was a sign of a failed policy that they predicted would allow Al Qaeda to rebuild training camps and plot attacks despite the Taliban’s pledge to deny the group a safe haven. Last October, a top Pentagon official said Al Qaeda could be able to regroup in Afghanistan and attack the United States in one to two years.

Administration officials have pushed back on the most recent criticisms, noting a pledge Mr. Biden made when he announced al-Zawahri’s death.

“As President Biden has said, we will continue to remain vigilant, along with our partners, to defend our nation and ensure that Afghanistan never again becomes a safe haven for terrorism,” Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for the White House’s National Security Council, said in an email on Saturday.

Yet some outside counterterrorism specialists saw the new intelligence assessment as overly hopeful.

A U.N. report warned this spring that Al Qaeda had found “increased freedom of action” in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power. The report noted that a number of Qaeda leaders were possibly living in Kabul and that the uptick in public statements by al-Zawahri suggested that he was able to lead more effectively after the Taliban seized power.

This seems like an overly rosy assessment to the point of being slightly myopic,” Colin P. Clarke, a counterterrorism analyst at the Soufan Group, a security consulting firm based in New York, said of the intelligence analysis. He added that the summary said “little about the longer-term prospects of Al Qaeda.”

Al-Zawahri’s death has once again cast a spotlight on Al Qaeda, which after Osama bin Laden’s death in 2011 has largely been overshadowed by an upstart rival, the Islamic State. Many terrorism analysts said Saif al-Adel, a senior Qaeda leader wanted by the F.B.I. in the bombings of two United States embassies in East Africa in 1998, was likely to succeed al-Zawahri. He is believed to be living in Iran.

“Basically, I find the I.C. assessment convincing,” said Daniel Byman, a professor at Georgetown University, referring to the U.S. intelligence community and its new analysis of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Mr. Byman has in the past voiced skepticism about a resurgent Qaeda threat.

But other counterterrorism experts disagreed. One point of dispute involved claims in the intelligence summary that Al Qaeda had not reconstituted its threat network in Afghanistan and that al-Zawahri was the only major figure who sought to reestablish Al Qaeda’s presence in the country when he and his family settled in Kabul this year.

“Zawahri was THE leader of Al Qaeda, so his being protected by the Taliban while he provided more active guidance to the group was in of itself reconstitution,” Asfandyar Mir, a senior expert at the United States Institute of Peace, wrote in an email.

“This approach fails to account for the group Al Qaeda is today and the fact that even a small number of core leaders can leverage Afghanistan to politically direct the group’s affiliate network,” Mr. Mir wrote. “Al Qaeda doesn’t need large training camps to be dangerous.”

Some counterterrorism experts also took issue with the government analysts’ judgment that fewer than a dozen Qaeda members with longtime ties to the group are in Afghanistan, and that most of those members were likely there before the fall of the Afghan government last summer.

“Their numbers of active, hard-core Al Qaeda in AfPak make no sense,” said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations, referring to Afghanistan and Pakistan. “At least three dozen senior Qaeda commanders were freed from Afghan jails a year ago. I very much doubt they have turned to farming or accounting as their post-prison vocations.”

Mr. Hoffman said that Qaeda operatives or their affiliates had been given important administrative responsibilities in at least eight Afghan provinces. He suggested the timing of the government assessment was “to deflect attention from the disastrous consequences of last year’s shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan.”

The intelligence summary also said that members of the Qaeda affiliate in Afghanistan, formerly known as Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, or AQIS, were largely inactive and focused mainly on activities like media production.

But a U.N. report in July estimated that the Qaeda affiliate had between 180 to 400 fighters — “primarily from Bangladesh, India, Myanmar and Pakistan” — who were in several Taliban combat units.

“We know from a range of sources that AQIS participated in the Taliban’s insurgency against the U.S. as well as operations against ISIS-K,” Mr. Mir said, referring to the Islamic State’s branch in Afghanistan, a bitter rival of Al Qaeda.

There was broad agreement on at least two main points in the intelligence summary, including that Al Qaeda does not yet have the ability to attack the United States or American interests aboard from Afghan soil.

The U.N. report in July concurred with that judgment, explaining that Al Qaeda “is not viewed as posing an immediate international threat from its safe haven in Afghanistan because it lacks an external operational capability and does not currently wish to cause the Taliban international difficulty or embarrassment.”

And government analysts as well as outside terrorism experts agreed that Al Qaeda in Afghanistan would, in the short term, most likely call upon a range of affiliates outside the region to carry out plots.

None of these affiliates pose the same kind of threat to the American homeland that Al Qaeda did on Sept. 11, 2001. But they are deadly and resilient. The Qaeda affiliate in East Africa killed three Americans at a U.S. base in Kenya in 2020. A Saudi Air Force officer training in Florida killed three sailors and wounded eight other people in 2019. The officer acted on his own but was in contact with the Qaeda branch in Yemen as he completed his attack plans.

27]

ZIE NOOT 23

[28]

“Al Qaeda is not viewed as posing an immediate international threat from its safe haven in Afghanistan because it lacks an external operational capability and does not currently wish to cause the Taliban international difficulty or embarrassment,” the U.N. report concluded.”

THE NEW YORK TIMES

AL-ZAWAHIRI’S DEATH PUTS THE FOCUS BACK ON AL-QAEDA

The terrorist network has lost eight of its top leaders in recent years. But it has more total fighters than it did on Sept. 11, 2001.

WASHINGTON — No terrorist group, not even the Islamic State, has had the notoriety and immediate name recognition of Al Qaeda.

But the killing of the group’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, in a C.I.A. drone strike early Sunday marks a pivotal inflection point for the global organization. Eight of its top leaders have been killed in the past three years, and it is unclear who will succeed al-Zawahri.

Yet Al Qaeda is in more countries and has more total fighters than it did on Sept. 11, 2001, when it attacked the United States. Some of its franchises that have sprung up since then, particularly in Somalia and the Sahel region of West Africa, are ascendant, seizing

swaths of territory from weak governments and spending millions of dollars on new weapons, despite a decade’s effort to weaken and contain them.

None of these affiliates pose the same kind of threat to the American homeland that Al Qaeda did on Sept. 11. But they are deadly and resilient. The Qaeda affiliate in East Africa killed three Americans at a U.S. base in Kenya in 2020. A Saudi officer training in Florida killed three sailors and wounded eight other people in 2019. The officer acted on his own but was in contact with the Qaeda branch in Yemen as he completed his attack plans.

And as al-Zawahri’s presence in Kabul suggests, Al Qaeda and its leaders feel confident moving around Afghanistan, now that the Taliban are back in control of the country, counterterrorism officials said.

“The question isn’t what this does to Al Qaeda, but what does this do to the witches’ brew of terrorists in Afghanistan?” said Brian Katulis, the vice president for policy at the Middle East Institute.

Al Qaeda is not the only global terrorist network in transition. A risky predawn raid in northwest Syria in early February by U.S. Special Operations forces resulted in the death of the Islamic State’s overall leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi. ISIS fighters have reverted to a guerrilla war since the last remnant of its caliphate, or religious state, in Syria was seized by U.S.-backed Syrian Kurds in 2019.

But al-Zawahri’s death puts the focus back on Al Qaeda, which had largely been overshadowed by its upstart Islamic State rival, also known as ISIL, after Osama bin Laden’s death in 2011. Many terrorism analysts said Saif al-Adel, a senior Qaeda leader wanted by the F.B.I. in the bombings of two United States embassies in East Africa in 1998, was likely to succeed al-Zawahri. He is believed to be living in Iran.

“The international context is favorable to Al Qaeda, which intends to be recognized again as the leader of global jihad,” a U.N. report concluded in July. “Al Qaeda propaganda is now better developed to compete with ISIL as the key actor in inspiring the international threat environment, and it may ultimately become a greater source of directed threat.”

Afghanistan

No country is under greater U.S. scrutiny for a comeback by Al Qaeda than Afghanistan. In announcing al-Zawahri’s death on Monday, President Biden said the strike would help ensure that Afghanistan could no longer “become a terrorist safe haven” or a “launching pad” for attacks against the United States.

But the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the country last August put pressure on the military and spy agencies to watch for a Qaeda resurgence with only limited informant networks on the ground and drones flying from the Persian Gulf on “over the horizon” surveillance missions.

This spring, another U.N. report cautioned that Al Qaeda had found “increased freedom of action” in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power. The report noted that a number of Qaeda leaders were possibly living in Kabul and that an increase in public statements and videos by al-Zawahri suggested that he was able to lead more effectively and more openly after the Taliban took control.

But the intelligence shared by U.N. member nations in the July report indicated that Al Qaeda did not pose the same immediate threat as the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan.

“Al Qaeda is not viewed as posing an immediate international threat from its safe haven in Afghanistan because it lacks an external operational capability and does not currently wish to cause the Taliban international difficulty or embarrassment,” the U.N. report concluded.

Somalia

The wealthiest and most lethal Qaeda affiliate today is Al Shabab, the franchise in Somalia and the rest of East Africa, military and counterterrorism officials said.

According to the most recent U.N. report, Al Shabab currently has 7,000 to 12,000 fighters and is spending approximately $24 million a year — a quarter of its budget — on weapons and explosives, and increasingly on drones.

And the threat is getting worse. “It is my judgment that due to a lack of effective governance and counterterrorism pressure, Al Shabab has only grown stronger and bolder over the past year,” Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, the head of the Pentagon’s Africa Command, told the Senate in March.

In the latest sign of trouble, almost 500 Shabab fighters crossed into eastern Ethiopia last month and clashed with Ethiopian forces along the border, General Townsend said.

In May, Mr. Biden signed an order authorizing the Pentagon to redeploy hundreds of Special Operations forces inside Somalia — largely reversing a decision by President Donald J. Trump to withdraw nearly all 700 ground troops who had been stationed there.

In addition, Mr. Biden approved a Pentagon request for standing authority to target about a dozen suspected leaders of Al Shabab. Since Mr. Biden took office, airstrikes in Somalia have largely been limited to those meant to defend partner forces facing an immediate threat.

Together, the decisions by Mr. Biden resurrected an open-ended American counterterrorism operation that amounted to a low-grade war through three administrations.

Military officials said the total number of U.S. troops having a “persistent presence” in Somalia would be capped at around 450. That will replace a system in which U.S. troops trained and advised Somali and African Union forces during short visits.

The Biden administration’s strategy in Somalia is to try to reduce the threat from Al Shabab by suppressing its ability to plot and carry out complicated operations, such as the attack on a U.S. air base at Manda Bay, Kenya, in January 2020 that killed three Americans.

West Africa

In the Sahel, the vast arid region south of the Sahara, militants from both Al Qaeda and the Islamic State have been fighting local governments in countries like Mali and Burkina Faso for years.

Despite the arrival of French troops and a U.N. peacekeeping force, militants spread across Mali and then to neighboring nations. In Burkina Faso, to the south, nearly two million people have been displaced by the conflict.

Countries on the Gulf of Guinea, like Benin and Ivory Coast, have also suffered sporadic attacks as the violence seeps south. The Qaeda affiliate, known as JNIM, trains recruits in Burkina Faso before redeploying them “to their countries of origin,” the July U.N. report said.

Syria

The most serious terrorism concerns in Syria focus on the thousands of Islamic State fighters in the country’s northeast.

American counterterrorism officials have voiced alarm in recent years about a Qaeda affiliate in Syria, Hurras al-Din, that they say is plotting attacks against the West by exploiting the chaotic security situation in the country’s northwest and the protection inadvertently afforded by Russian air defenses shielding Syrian government forces.

But recent U.S. airstrikes, such as one in June in Idlib Province that the military said killed Abu Hamzah al Yemeni, one of the group’s senior leaders, have eased some of the worries.

Yemen

For more than a decade, Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen was one of the most dangerous terrorist organizations on the planet. The group spent years inventing explosives that were difficult to detect, including trying to disguise bombs in devices like cellphones. It has tried at least three times to blow up American airliners, without success.

But several of the group’s leaders have been killed in recent years, damaging its ability to orchestrate or carry out operations against the West, American and European counterterrorism specialists say.

Clashes with rival Islamic State and Houthi rebel fighters in Yemen have also weakened the group, whose full name is Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP. Even though the group has been diminished, intelligence and counterterrorism officials warn that the organization remains dangerous.