{"id":47017,"date":"2022-08-03T01:07:14","date_gmt":"2022-08-02T16:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2022\/aug\/02\/ayman-al-zawahiri-killing-biden-al-qaida-leader-death-us-pakistan-taliban"},"modified":"2022-08-03T01:07:14","modified_gmt":"2022-08-02T16:07:14","slug":"zawahiris-killing-was-a-biden-play-for-popularity-but-it-may-have-unintended-consequences-hameed-hakimi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=47017","title":{"rendered":"Zawahiri\u2019s killing was a Biden play for popularity \u2013 but it may have unintended consequences | Hameed Hakimi"},"content":{"rendered":"

The death of the al-Qaida leader points to a potential shift in the complex dynamic between the US, Pakistan and the Taliban<\/p>\n

A decade after US Navy Seals killed Osama bin Laden in a special operation in Pakistan, Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed<\/a> in a US drone strike in Kabul.<\/p>\n

Both men were synonymous with the image of al-Qaida. But more than anything, the killing of Zawahiri is a symbolic success for Joe Biden, whose approval rating has been dismally low<\/a> recently. Even before the ill-fated military withdrawal from Afghanistan that led to the Taliban seizing power, the US president had been vigorously trying to avoid<\/a> discussing the country in his media engagements. Unsurprisingly, he is now trying to capitalise on the drone strike that killed Zawahiri to seek redemption in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Hameed Hakimi is an associate fellow at Chatham House in London and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington DC<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The death of the al-Qaida leader points to a potential shift in the complex dynamic between the US, Pakistan and the TalibanA decade after US Navy Seals killed Osama bin Laden in a special operation in Pakistan, Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a US dro…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2382,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46,487,60,61,45,47,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-al-qaida","category-pakistan","category-south-and-central-asia","category-us-foreign-policy","category-us-news","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2382"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47018,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47017\/revisions\/47018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}