Former Trump National Security Official ‘Skeptical’ U.S. Killed Terror Leader in Afghanistan: ‘Let Me Throw Some Cold Water on This’
Fred Fleitz, the former Executive Secretary of the National Security Council under former President Donald Trump, said he is “skeptical” the U.S. killed Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahiri in a drone strike in Afghanistan.
Zawahiri, according to multiple reports, was killed over the weekend outside of Taliban-controlled Kabul by the CIA.
On Fox News’ Monday edition of The Five, Bret Baier opined the death of the successor to Osama bin Laden is a win for President Joe Biden.
Biden will speak to the country at 7:30 p.m. ET, and Baier billed the speech as a chance to declare a victory.
“This is a huge, huge win for the U.S. and we expect to hear that and where the fight goes from here as far as taking out other terrorists,” Baier said. He added:
If everything we’re hearing is accurate and we believe it to be true. They had some active intelligence from people on the ground that we’re working with and that led to this residence and it led to this CIA drone strike so that over-the-horizon strike capability was there, despite the concerns still about where Afghanistan is with the Taliban and without kind of guidance of of US forces, at least in the over the horizon capability.
Later, while discussing the topic with Fleitz on Special Report, Baier noted U.S. intelligence officials have been hunting for Zawahiri for years. He asked Fleitz for his thoughts on the news.
Fleitz, a former CIA officer, and the vice chair of the conservative America First Policy Institute Center for American Security, said he is “skeptical” the U.S. pulled off killing Zawahiri.
He said:
If that is true, this is a real win, sure, but let me throw some cold water on this. I am skeptical a year after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan this happens. I’d like to know how this happened and how did it happen. Now, do we know that he was really killed? There was no Western media on the ground to confirm this.
Fleitz said last year the country was told no civilians were killed in a botched drone strike in Kabul as the U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan. He concluded, “That was not true,” before he ripped the Biden administration.
“I’m afraid that they have a habit of saying things that are not accurate,” Fleitz said. “I hope that this is accurate and I want to give Joe Biden credit, but I also want Congress to investigate this to find out what really happened.”
Watch above, via Fox News.
