Just an hour after sunrise on July 31, long-time al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri walked onto the balcony of a campus in central Kabul – reportedly the veteran Egyptian jihadist’s favorite post-prayer activity.

This would be the last thing I would do.

At 06:18 local time (01:38 GMT), two missiles hit the balcony, killing the 71-year-old man, but leaving his wife and daughter inside unharmed. All the damage caused by the attack seems to be concentrated on the balcony.

How was it possible to attack with such precision? In the past, the US has come under fire for targeting mistakes in attacks that kill civilians.

But in this case, how did close examination of the missile’s type and Zawahiri’s habits make this possible – and why more attacks might occur.

laser precision

The type of missile used was key – the drone-fired Hellfires, according to US officials – a type of air-to-surface missile that became a fixture in US counterterrorism operations abroad in the decades following the September 11, 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 a British Islamic State jihadist known as “Jihadi John” in Syria in 2015.

Among the main reasons for repeated use of Hellfire is its accuracy.

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

Using a series of “aim holders” on the screen, the camera operator can “lock” the target and point a laser at it. After the missile is fired, it follows the trajectory of that laser until it reaches the target.

To minimize the risk of civilian death, there are clear and sequential procedures that the crew operating the drone must follow before taking action. In previous attacks by the US and the US intelligence agency, the CIA, this included calling for military lawyers to consult before ordering the dismissal.

Professor William Banks, an expert on targeted killings and founder of the Syracuse University Institute for Security Law and Policy, says officials will have to balance the risk of civilian deaths against the value of the target.

The attack on Zawahiri “seems to be a model implementation” of the process, he said.

“Apparently in this situation they were very careful and deliberate to find Zawahiri in a place and time where they could hit him and not hurt anyone,” Banks said.

In the case of the attack on Zawahiri, it has been suggested, but not confirmed, that the US used a relatively unknown version of the Hellfire – the R9X – which uses six blades to cut targets using its kinetic energy.

In 2017, it was reported that Abu Khair al-Masri, another al-Qaeda leader and one of Zawahiri’s aides, was killed by a Hellfire R9X in Syria. Photographs of his vehicle taken after the attack showed the missile punctured a hole in the roof and shattered its contents, but the vehicle showed no signs of explosion or other destruction.

US followed Zawahiri’s ‘balcony habit’

Details are still emerging as to what kind of intelligence the US gathered before launching the attack on Kabul.

But after the attack, US officials said they had enough information to understand Zawahiri’s “lifestyle” at home – such as his habit of going out on the porch.

This indicates that US spies have been monitoring the house for weeks, if not months.

Marc Polymeropoulos, a former top CIA agent, told the BBC that various intelligence methods may have been used prior to the attack, including spies on the ground and interception of signals.

There are also those who claim that US drones or planes take turns watching the area for weeks or months without being seen or heard from the ground.

“You need something that provides certainty of individuality, and it also needs to be done in an environment free of collateral damage, which means no civilian casualties,” he says.

“It takes a lot of patience.”

Polymeropoulos adds that the attack on Zawahiri draws on the US intelligence community’s decades of experience in tracking individual al-Qaeda leaders and other terrorist targets.

“We’re exceptional at this. It’s something the US government has gotten very good at over 20 years,” he says.

“And Americans are much safer for it.”

However, such American operations do not always go according to plan. On August 29, 2021, 10 innocent people were killed in a drone attack on a vehicle north of Kabul airport, targeting a local branch of ISIS. The Pentagon admitted that a “tragic mistake” had been made.

Bill Roggio, a researcher at the Defense of Democracies Foundation, which has been tracking US drones for many years, believes that, given the absence of any assets, the attack on Zawahiri was probably “much more difficult” than previous assassinations. US government resources nearby.

For example, previous drone attacks on neighboring Pakistan would come from Afghanistan, while attacks on Syria would be from allied territory in Iraq.

“[Nesses casos] It was much easier for the USA to reach these regions. They had resources on the ground. It was much more complex.”

“This is the first attack on al-Qaeda or the Islamic State in Afghanistan since the US withdrawal. This is not a common occurrence.”

Can it happen again?

Roggio said he wouldn’t be “surprised” if there were similar attacks on al-Qaeda targets in Afghanistan.

“There is no shortage of targets,” he states.

“Potential next leaders [da Al-Qaeda] If they are not already there, they will most likely move to Afghanistan.”

“The question is whether the US still has the ability to do this easily, or whether it will be a difficult process,” he adds.

– This text was originally published at https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/internacional-62396197.