The operation that killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri with a drone strike in a posh Kabul neighborhood was partially the work of a U.S. military unit so clandestine that its actual name is a state secret, according to three NATO officials briefed on the operation.⁠ ⁠ “It was a huge operation led by the CIA as is typically the case for something like this and everyone plays a specific role,” said a senior NATO military official who works closely with the U.S. on counter-terrorism. “It’s probably the closest thing in real life to that Jason Bourne shit.” ⁠ ⁠ The announcement of the killing said that U.S. intelligence had observed al-Zawahri’s family relocating from the tribal belt in Pakistan to Kabul in April this year. Rumors that the Americans were tipped off by the Taliban or its powerful Haqqani faction as part of some secret deal were described by two officials as “plausible.”⁠ ⁠ Click the link in our bio for the full story.⁠