Al Zawahiri toasted in Hellfire.

[Dill]

(08-02-2022, 11:45 AM)samhain Wrote: Man.  I guess geopolitics is just going to be large sighs of relief when people manage to kill or vote out dudes in their 70s that are getting ready to check out anyway.

That Z was killed in a Haqqani owned safe house is rather troubling.

On the positive side, though, this is more than just killing a dude my age.

It also shows that the U.S. is still getting human intelligence on the ground and can strike targets with stiletto precision. And that our intel services have not forgotten. 

So it will be interesting to see how the new Taliban gov. actually responds to this. They've already complained about the violation of sovereignty and U.S. not keeping to agreements. But Z's presence hurts their image, having themselves agreed they'd uncouple from Al Qaeda. 

One concern I have is that a split may appear in the Taliban, as a fraction thinks, following Z, that their primary focus ought not to be on establishing an Islamic Republic in A-stan, but on the fight against the "far enemy." This strike lends that view credence; even if this remains a negligible view within the Taliban, it may make the Taliban in some regions less reticent to control other Salafist groups, even where their actions counter the interests of the Taliban state.

PS this is also a small positive for Biden. Could boost his support one or two percentage points for the next two weeks, before submerging into the usual social amnesia.

PPS Also huge visibility now for the R9X, which kills without a war head/explosion.
https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/how-tos/2021/08/26/the-telltale-traces-of-the-us-militarys-new-bladed-missile-r9x/