The below map shows Al Qaeda leaders killed and captured in Afghanistan since 2010. The Taliban’s claim that Al Qaeda has no presence in Afghanistan is false and dangerous.
Click here to scroll
Since 2001, the Taliban has consistently claimed that Al Qaeda
has no presence in Afghanistan. Even after the July 2022 U.S. drone
strike in Kabul that killed Al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri, the
Taliban continues this lie.
Zawahiri is just one of dozens
of senior Al Qaeda leaders, military commanders, and operatives that
have been killed or captured in counterterrorism operations in
Afghanistan since 2010. FDD’s Long War Journal has compiled a
detailed list and timeline of the most prominent leaders killed or
captured across nine provinces in Afghanistan. Hundreds of lower level
Al Qaeda commanders, fighters and operatives have been killed during
operations in this time period.
As FDD’s Long War Journal has
detailed
over the last decade, and as
files
recovered from Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan
in 2011 confirmed, Al Qaeda has long maintained a presence in
Afghanistan.
With Taliban leaders having openly
called
for foreign fighters to join their ranks, publicly
mourned
the death of Al Qaeda leaders, and
flaunted
an alliance with Al Qaeda, Washington must remain clear-eyed about the
past and continued threat posed by the safe haven of a
Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
