It is a blow to radical and militant Islamists who redefined global order in the 21st century and remain a threat, even if in a more diffused and geographically spread out manner than in the past. And it will bring a smile, even if temporarily, to the scores of intelligence and security professionals across capitals, including New Delhi, who have been tracking, countering, and battling one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists.

But the killing is as much a failure as it is a success.

It is a failure of global, particularly American, counterterrorism efforts that took close to three decades to locate and pin down Zawahiri. It is a failure of America’s Afghanistan policy that saw the Taliban return to power in Kabul and give refuge to Al Qaeda, two decades after the US waged a war in the country precisely to prevent this collaboration between the Islamist regime and the Islamist terror group.

And it is a failure of the international community, which, despite India’s warnings for decades, refused to see the links that exist between Pakistan’s deep State, Taliban, the Al Qaeda leadership and a range of terror outfits directing their destructive energies against India and others. These lines are murky, the connections aren’t always neat, contradictions abound among them — but the nexus undoubtedly exists, as seen during both bin Laden’s killing in Abbotabad next to Rawalpindi and now Zawahiri’s killing in a Kabul neighbourhood.

For now though, the death of Zawahiri will have an impact on American domestic political discourse as well as the nature of geopolitical threats, particularly in South Asia, West Asia and Africa.

The domestic context

It was exactly a year ago that Biden followed up on Donald Trump’s peace deal with Taliban and walked out of Afghanistan.

Much to the surprise of US officials, who believed that the Afghan government would last for at least a few months, the Republic immediately collapsed giving way to the Emirate. On August 15, the Taliban took over. America’s global standing took a hit. And Biden’s popularity ratings dipped. They haven’t recovered since. With midterm elections approaching, Biden needed a national security success story to counter the Republican critique of leaving America unsafe.

On Monday, when Biden announced Zawahiri’s killings, laying out in detail the intelligence work that preceded it and the care that had been taken to avoid any collateral damage, the US President sought to counter the criticism that had been directed at him for the past year.

“When I ended our military mission in Afghanistan almost a year ago, I made the decision that after 20 years of war, the United States no longer needed thousands of boots on the ground in Afghanistan to protect America from terrorists who seek to do us harm. And I made a promise to the American people that we would continue to conduct effective counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan and beyond. We have done just that.”

Biden, on the back of the recent success, may be right in making the claim. And it could well lay the basis for future over-the-horizon counter terror operations. But the statement hides more than it reveals, for it doesn’t answer a basic question — what was Zawahiri doing in Kabul when the peace deal with Taliban was predicated on not giving terror groups a refuge on Afghan soil?

Indeed, Secretary of State Antony J Blinken, acknowledged the Taliban’s complicity. By “hosting and sheltering” the Al Qaeda leader in Kabul, he said that the Taliban “grossly violated” the Doha Agreement and repeated assurances to the world that they would not allow Afghan territory to be used by terrorists to threaten the security of other countries. “They also betrayed the Afghan people and their own stated desire for recognition from and normalization with the international community. In the face of the Taliban’s unwillingness or inability to abide by their commitments, we will continue to support the Afghan people with robust humanitarian assistance and to advocate for the protection of their human rights, especially of women and girls.”

Explaining the significance of Zawahiri’s location, Asfandyar Mir, a senior expert at the United States Institute for Peace, told HT that the strike revealed that even after years of international pressure and engagement, the Taliban remained deeply committed to Al Qaeda as well as other foreign jihadists in the country.

“US engagement with the Taliban over the last many years was premised on the Taliban not wanting to turn the clock to the pre-9/11 era, that the assurances provided were not ironclad but still sufficient to ward off that possibility. But Zawahiri being in Kabul in a Haqqani controlled safehouse is as strong an indication as possible that we were – perhaps still are – on track for Taliban’s Afghanistan reverting to their pre-9/11 ways.”

This means that while Biden — who has also had a string of domestic legislative successes in the past week — may seem a bump in his ratings on the issue, it will not take away from the fundamental critique of America’s Afghan policy. A flawed peace deal that legitimised Taliban and allowed it to expand power, without extracting any change in its ideological or coercive apparatus, is what led to Zawahiri living in a crowded Kabul neighbourhood. And while details of who leaked the information about Zawahiri’s whereabouts will slowly emerge — it could well be an inside job, suspect some experts — the Taliban’s attempts to pretend to be a responsible actor will take a beating.

The broader impact

Experts on counter terrorism have long argued that the Al Qaeda is no longer the same Al Qaeda of 2001, when bin Laden and Zawahiri plotted the 9/11 attacks and then ran off to Pakistan as US attacked Afghanistan. The central leadership provided ideological direction and a platform, but the outfit became more diffuse and local affiliates exercised more power. The group also began facing a real competitor in the form of the Islamic State, in West Asia, parts of Africa and then in Afghanistan itself.

How does Zawahiri’s killing change the dynamic of radical Islamist terror?

Avinash Paliwal, an academic at the SOAS in London and the author of My Enemy’s Enemy: India in Afghanistan from the Soviet Invasion to US withdrawal, said that Zawahiri was not “operationally active”, but commanded “symbolic respect” as an old timer, and helped global recruitment using videos and other means.

“His death is unlikely to drain the Al Qaeda of its actual capabilities in the subcontinent. But a lot depends on who they hold responsible for this attack and how its seen among its cadres. If the internal pushback is strong, it could lead to a temporary breakdown in the Al Qaeda Taliban story. If its not, then we are likely to see the Al Qaeda focus more actively on its core subcontinental agendas under a lesser known, more active, and younger operational leadership.”

Mir, the expert at USIP, said that Zawahiri had ensured Al Qaeda’s survival in a period of relentless American counterterrorism pressure, which meant that Al Qaeda and its global network will feel the loss of his leadership.

“At the same time I anticipate his successor will be chosen without a major dispute, and the group might be able to draw on so-called ‘mayrdom’ sympathy from the jihadist world, in particular in Afghanistan from Taliban-aligned constituencies, to maintain its threats in the region, especially against India, and the US and its allies.”

This means that even as the world takes a moment to breathe easy at the end of one of the moat’s dreaded terrorists ever in global history, this is no moment for complacency. The Taliban’s actions internally in Afghanistan, and Al Qaeda’s succession and possible offensives in the future externally, will mark the next chapter in the story of global terror. Both the American and the Indian security grid will be keeping a close watch.