The news reporters here said that he was not in hiding but out in public moving around freely and that’s how he was located. People in the know, think that he was outed . Sounds more likely to me.
Jason Bodsky:
Thread: A few important connections between #Iran and #AlQaeda’s Ayman al-#Zawahiri. Not only does Saif al Adl, a potential Zawahiri successor, reside in #Iran, but Zawahiri’s son-in-law Abd-al Rahman al-Maghrebi also resides in Iran.
Zawahiri had a years-long friendship with the former Commander of #Iran’s IRGC Quds Force, Ahmad Vahidi (a Soleimani predecessor), who helped #AlQaeda leaders find safe harbor in 2001. Vahidi is now Iran’s Interior Minister in the Raisi administration.
From #Iran, Saif al Adl helped relay orders from Ayman al-Zawahiri to Tanzim Qaedat fi al-Jazeeratul Arab (the Al-Qaeda Organization on the Arabian Peninsula) to attack #SaudiArabia.
In a letter by Zawahiri in 2008, he hailed #Iran for its assistance and “vision” to assist #AlQaeda in establishing new bases in #Yemen after abandoning bases in Iraq and Saudi Arabia
https://twitter.com/JasonMBrodsky/status/1554234256536256512
more at the link