The Chinese Foreign Ministry and Chinese government media commentary scolded the administration of leftist American President Joe Biden on Tuesday for executing a successful airstrike against al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan, claiming the move violated the “sovereignty” of the reigning Taliban terrorist organization.
Biden announced the killing of Zawahiri, the successor to Osama bin Laden, on Monday. White House officials stated that a drone strike on Zawahiri’s balcony in a wealthy Kabul neighborhood killed the terror chief without inflicting any other casualties and causing minimal property damage.
Reports prior to Zawahiri’s elimination indicated that the al-Qaeda chief had been living comfortably and conspicuously in the nation’s capital, presumably under the auspices of the Taliban. The Taliban, a Sunni jihadist terrorist group with decades-long ties to al-Qaeda, had agreed in a deal brokered with the administration of former President Donald Trump to sever its alliance with al-Qaeda in exchange for American forces leaving the country. Rather than honor the agreement, Biden broke the deal, extending America’s presence in Afghanistan beyond the May 1, 2021, deadline. Taliban leaders responded by declaring the deal invalid and waging a campaign against the corrupt U.S.-backed government in the country that ended with the jihadists capturing Kabul on August 15, 2021.
UNDATED PHOTO Osama bin Laden (L) sits with his adviser Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian linked to the al Qaeda network, during an interview with Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir (not pictured) at an undisclosed location in Afghanistan. (Visual News/Getty Images)
The Chinese Communist Party has invested heavily in the Taliban’s success since the takeover and recognized it as the “interim government” of Afghanistan in October.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry issued remarks during its regular briefing on Tuesday proclaiming, “there should be no double standards on counterterrorism and it should be against all forms of terrorism,” presumably an attack on America for not supporting China’s claims that its genocide against the predominantly Muslim Uyghur people of occupied East Turkistan is a campaign against terrorism.
This photo released on August 2, 2022, by the White House shows US President Biden meeting with his national security team to discuss the counterterrorism operation to take out Ayman al-Zawahiri. (AFP)
“Counterterrorism cooperation should not be conducted at the expense of the sovereignty of other countries,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said. Hua did not celebrate the demise of the head of one of the world’s most prominent jihadist organizations or directly mention the United States.
The Chinese government propaganda newspaper Global Times, citing alleged “experts,” condemned the United States for executing an airstrike that “violates Afghanistan’s sovereignty” on Tuesday.
U.S. soldiers stand guard behind barbed wire as Afghans sit on a roadside near the military part of the airport in Kabul on August 20, 2021, hoping to flee from the country after the Taliban’s military takeover of Afghanistan. (WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images)
“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 Global Times affirmed. Citing an anonymous “Beijing-based expert,” the outlet concluded, “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.”
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, right, stands next to Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, acting deputy prime minister of the Afghan Taliban’s caretaker government, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, March 24, 2022. (Saifurahman Safi/Xinhua via AP)
An on-the-record “expert” identified as Li Wei was quoted in the article questioning the Pentagon’s assertion that the strike on Zawahiri did not result in any other casualties — an assertion the Taliban itself did not deny.
“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,” the Times relayed. Li was later quoted as saying that the strike was “a violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity” of the Taliban “no matter what the legitimacy is” because Taliban jihadists were not made aware beforehand that American forces would target their ally.
A view of Sherpur neighborhood where al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri killed by U.S. drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan on August 02, 2022. (Sayed Khodaiberdi Sadat/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Chinese objections to the airstrike echo the official statement published this week by top Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, which did not mention Zawahiri or al-Qaeda.
“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan strongly condemns this attack for any reason and calls it a clear violation of international principles and the Doha Agreement,” Mujahid said in the statement. “Such actions are a repetition of the failed experiences of the past 20 years and are against the interests of the United States of America, Afghanistan, and the region. Repeating such actions will damage available opportunities.”
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid addresses a press conference in Kabul on September 7, 2021. (AAMIR QURESHI/AFP via Getty Images)
The “Doha Agreement” is the deal brokered between the Taliban and the Trump administration that required the United States to withdraw from Afghanistan on the condition that the Taliban cut ties to al-Qaeda. Mujahid has denied, falsely, in the past that the agreement required any such commitment to distance from terrorist organizations.
The elimination of Zawahiri has put the relationship between the Taliban and al-Qaeda back at the forefront of problems arising from Biden’s catastrophic Afghanistan war extension, which led to an abrupt withdrawal and the return of the Taliban to power. Asked in an interview on Monday, White House national security spokesman John Kirby admitted that “some senior leaders of the Haqqani Network were aware” of Zawahiri living in the capital city.
The Haqqani Network is a Sunni terrorist organization that serves in many ways as a bridge between the Taliban and al-Qaeda; multiple members of the Haqqani family now serve in cabinet-level officials in the Taliban’s rogue “government.” Shortly after the Taliban’s conquest of Afghanistan, the Biden administration incorrectly claimed that the Taliban and Haqqani Network were “separate entities.”
“Look, I mean, al-Qaeda was on the ground in Afghanistan even when the president decided to end that war, and we knew that, and we talked about that, that al-Qaeda was already re-establishing a presence there,” Kirby said following Zawahiri’s death this week.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) newspaper the National revealed in a report this week that it was likely more than just senior Haqqani Network leaders were aware of Zawahiri living in Kabul, as the septuagenarian terror chief spent much of his time sunbathing on his balcony with no measures to hide his identity. His behavior indicated that he felt protected in the densely populated capital city, a sign of ongoing ties between the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Last month, the United Nations published a report confirming that Zawahiri was still alive, “communicating freely,” and “likely operating inside Afghanistan.”