US used Pakistani airspace for drone that killed al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahri: analysts

The US drone which killed al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahri in Kabul used Pakistani airspace to carry out its mission, security analysts said.

Islamabad certainly gave Washington permission, they said, and could well have provided human intelligence confirming Zawahri's whereabouts.

"The drone definitely entered Pakistani airspace over Balochistan and entered Afghanistan," said Abdul Basit, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

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He said the operation was probably conducted according to the terms of a 2003 agreement under which Pakistan provided an air corridor for US military flights to and from Afghanistan while it occupied the country.

"The 2003 agreement expired" when US forces left Afghanistan in August last year, "but it was kept intact to keep the airspace open for the US," Basit said.

Military operations analyst Jonathan Schroden agreed that the drone traversed Pakistani airspace.

He said the MQ-9 Reaper which fired the missiles at the terrorist kingpin probably took off from a US airbase in a Gulf Arab country, flew across the Arabian Sea, and entered Pakistani airspace.

It would not have had to be refuelled at a Pakistani airbase because "they can range from the Gulf", he said.

In the absence of any confirmation about operational details from Washington, Basit and some other analysts said it was unclear whether the Pakistani military's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency provided vital information about Zawahri.

In his statement confirming the al-Qaeda chief's assassination, US President Joe Biden referred only to cooperation by "key allies and partners".

However, given the ISI's extensive network in Afghanistan, particularly within the Taliban, and the fact that US intelligence resources have been greatly depleted since its military pull-out last August, analysts see Pakistan's involvement as more likely than not.

"It's entirely possible and it wouldn't surprise me" because "Pakistan has been looking for ways to repair its relationship with the US after the Taliban takeover", said Schroden, who is director of the countering threats and special operations programmes at CNA Corporation, a security think tank based in Virginia in the US.

Analysts pointed to a telephone call last week in which Pakistan's army chief of staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa - widely acknowledged to be the country's most powerful man - spoke to US deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman.

The Pakistani military said Bajwa called Sherman to lobby for Washington's support in persuading the International Monetary Fund to urgently release a tranche of financial assistance needed by Islamabad to avoid a default on its foreign debt.

Despite the military's long-standing dominance of Pakistan's affairs, however, the Bajwa-Sherman call was seen as highly unusual by Pakistani politicians and analysts alike, and is now being viewed as a possible precursor to the drone strike on Zawahri.

"The real story isn't about General Bajwa discussing the economy with the US government. The real story is: what's the quid pro quo?" said Faran Jeffrey, deputy director and head of the South Asia terrorism desk at the Britain-based Islamic Theology of Counter Terrorism.

Zawahri was killed early on Sunday while living with his family in a Kabul home owned by a close aide of Sirajuddin Haqqani, interior minister of the Taliban's regime and head of the so-called Haqqani Network terrorist faction.

The neighbourhood where it is located is home to many Taliban leadership figures.

The Haqqani Network has historically been seen as close to Pakistan's security agencies - in 2011, it was described as "a veritable arm of the ISI" by Admiral Mike Mullen, the then chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff.

However, relations between Pakistan's military and the Taliban - including the Haqqanis - have markedly deteriorated since they seized power in Afghanistan a year ago.

Islamabad is angry that the Taliban regime has not taken action against the 3,000-5,000 Pakistani Taliban insurgents reported by the United Nations to have taken refuge in Afghanistan.

The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) intensified its cross-border attacks against Pakistani security forces soon after the Taliban took power in Kabul.

After the Taliban regime repeatedly refused to intervene, Pakistan's military used Chinese-made Wing Loong II drones to attack TTP camps inside Afghanistan in April.

The Taliban subsequently persuaded the TTP to agree to an open-ended ceasefire and engage Pakistani representatives in talks mediated by Sirajuddin Haqqani.

The latest round, involving a delegation of Pakistani Islamic scholars, ended in failure last week.

Analysts said talks held in Washington in early May between ISI chief Lieutenant General Nadeem Anjum and top US officials, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, were the likely point at which the two sides agreed to restore their covert cooperation on counterterrorism.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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