. >>> next on "gps," i will talk to peter bergen about the demise of ayman al zawahiri, what does the's death mean for the future of terrorism? as condé nast traveler. ll but it is now time for us to work even harder, searching for meaningful experiences and new adventures for you to embark upon. they say when you reach the top, there's only one way to go. we say, that way is onwards. viking. exploring the world in comfort. we're a different kind of dentistry. one who believes in doing anything it takes to make dentistry work for your life. so we offer a complete exam and x-rays free to new patients without insurance - everyday. plus, patients get 20% off their treatment plan. we're on your corner and in your corner every step of the way. because your anything is our everything. aspen dental. anything to make you smile. book today at aspendental.com, walk in, or call 1-800-aspendental. (jackie) i've made progress with my mental health. so when i started having unintentional body movements called tardive dyskinesia... i ignored them. but when the twitching and jerking in my face and ha

joining me now, cnn national security analyst peter bergen, author of "the rise and fall of osama binpeter, welcome. let me first ask you, you have written very interesting piece saying that al zawahiri was not a particularly good head of al qaeda. he was not inspirational, in many ways he was not intelligent, he did not revive the group as many thought. so what does his death do to a group that was already, in many ways, in trouble? >> fareed, his successor may prove to be more effective, which is low bar because al zawahiri hadn't been able to revive the fortunes of al qaeda. there is a potential successor, part of al qaeda from the beginning. he's a former egyptian special forces officer, well regarded within al qaeda. he's been living for years in iran, he may be back in afghanistan and he is the likely successor. but he inherits a group that hasn't been able to carry out a successful attack in the west since the london bombnings in 2005. but the fact that al zawahiri was found in kabul in a safe house, was known to be live thing by leaders of the taliban, speaks for itself. so th

peter bergen is a cnn national security analyst and vice president for global studies and fellows at er, good morning. always grateful to have your perspective on -- you make the case that withdrawing from afghanistan was a mistake, but polling indicated that a majority in the united states wanted to get out. so what do you think should have been done differently and who bears responsibility for how it was handled? >> well, you know, yeah, not a lot of people will claim responsibility that they were responsible for not only what i thought was bad policy and clearly was a very poorly executed policy, but, you know, the polling you referred to, there was a lot of negative polling about how the withdrawal was handled. i think that if you, you know, if americans could understand when they're asked the polling questions a year later, women could not go to work, girls can't be educated, al qaeda's leader was living in kabul, al qaeda is closely aligned with the taliban, all the promises that were supposed to come with the withdrawal didn't happen. but the polling, you know, might have come

discuss, bruce hoffman, terrorism and insurgency expert, cnn national security analyst as well peter bergen, author of "the rise and fall of osama bin laden", someone with one of the rare folks that met bin laden. good to have you on. peter, this is an intricate months long intelligence operation to locate, pinpoint, figure out the tactics of how you take him out, while minimizing and avoiding it seems civilian casualties. how was that possible from over the horizon as they say, from outside the country? >> there is some incredible things we don't know. but what we do know is it seems that ayman al zawahiri's effort to reconnect with his family, with his wife, his daughter, grandkids, brought him into kabul, probably, you know, shortly after the taliban, took over kabul, he was housed in a haqqani taliban safe house, and we also know from the united nations he released an unprecedented number of videos during this period. eight between august of last year and may of this year. and every time you did a video, somebody has to take it, go and upload it at an internet cafe, not like everybody h

joining me now cnn national security analyst peter bergen, the author of "the rise and fall of osama ne year since kabul fell, and you concluded in your piece that you wrote for cnn about the afghanistan withdrawal that this is surely one of the most spectacular own goals the u.s. has ever scored. one year later, what do you say? how should people look back at this? >> well, kate, thanks for having me on. i mean, unfortunately, a lot of this was predict and predictable, the idea that the taliban had some moderated, reformed i think was delusional thinking. it gripped u.s. policy-makers beginning in the trump administration and then with the biden administration so that once they come to power that they would kind of moderate and, you know, not enforce their misogynistic ideology, that they would really separate themselves from al qaeda, and we now see a year later that none of that was true, unfortunately, and the country itself is in terrible shape. i mean, millions of a gains are on the brink of starvation and there are many other faults, kate. the taliban are terrible governors so

i want to bring in peter bergen, the expert on al qaeda. what is the relationship right now with the taliban in afghanistan? >> very close. don't take my word for. the u.n. issued a detailed report last month. they issued the report regularly. this was focused on isis and al qaeda. the u.n. had a member of the leadership in al qaeda. he had the unusual example of al qaeda being a cabinet member. the taliban cabinet member. of this relationship is very close. this gets to why ayman al- zawahri was found. he was feeling very comfortable. he released and unprecedented number of videotapes. and the comfort level that he had with the taliban. that will be part of the story we will see, as we get to know more about how this went down. >> we are about to learn a whole lot more. you are at the pentagon force. it may be a cia drone operation. no doubt the military is deeply involved in preparing for the intelligence necessary, among other things. to tell us what you learned. >> u.s. military, intelligence community, most exquisitely classified infor

and peter bergen weighed in. >> reason i think that he was killed in afghanistan over the weekend was he was beginning to take a lot more risks. according to the united nations, he had released an unprecedented number of videos. every time you record a video, there is the chain of custody of that video, getting it out there, somebody maybe taking the video. so he was becoming more prominent and i think it seems to me that that may well have been the reason that he was detected. >> this is a very, very symbolic success to bring one of the last of the original al qaeda leaders who did so much damage around the world. again, east africa bombings, a number of other bombings in north africa and elsewhere not to mention of course being a core part of al qaeda when the 9/11 attacks were planned. >> ben we'd mdeman is joining m from realome. hearing petraeus describe it as deeply symbolic, the question is, is it more than that, does it undermine al qaeda and the war against the united states that they waged? >> reporter: certainly symbolic, but the united states does put a premium on sort of