The al-Qaeda extremist group has grown barely inside Afghanistan since US forces left in late August, and the nation’s new Taliban leaders are divided over whether or not to meet their 2020 pledge to interrupt ties with the group, the highest US commander within the area mentioned Thursday.
Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of US Central Command, mentioned in an interview with The Associated Press that the departure of US navy and intelligence property from Afghanistan has made it a lot more durable to trace al-Qaeda and different extremist teams inside Afghanistan.
“We’re probably at about 1 or 2% of the capabilities we once had to look into Afghanistan,” he mentioned, including that this makes it “very hard, not impossible” to make sure that neither al-Qaeda nor the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate can pose a menace to the United States.
Speaking on the Pentagon, McKenzie mentioned it’s clear that al-Qaeda is trying to rebuild its presence inside Afghanistan, which was the bottom from which it deliberate the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults in opposition to the United States. He mentioned some militants are coming into the nation by means of its porous borders, however it’s arduous for the US to trace numbers.
The US invasion that adopted the Sept 11 assaults led to a 20-year battle that succeeded initially by eradicating the Taliban from energy however finally failed. After President Joe Biden introduced in April that he was withdrawing fully from Afghanistan, the Taliban systematically overpowered Afghan authorities defenses and seized Kabul, the capital, in August.
McKenzie and different senior US navy and nationwide safety officers had mentioned earlier than the US withdrawal that it might complicate efforts to maintain a lid on the al-Qaeda menace, partly due to the lack of on-the-ground intelligence data and the absence of a US-friendly authorities in Kabul. The US says it’s going to depend on airstrikes from drones and different plane based mostly past Afghanistan’s borders to reply to any extremist threats in opposition to the US homeland.
McKenzie mentioned no such strikes have been performed because the US accomplished its withdrawal from Afghanistan on Aug 30. He added that America’s means to conduct such strikes relies on the supply of intelligence, overhead imagery and different data and communications, “and that architecture is still being developed right now.” Al-Qaeda is amongst quite a few extremist teams inside Afghanistan. After 2001, it misplaced most of its numbers and its means to immediately threaten US territory, however McKenzie mentioned it retains “an aspirational desire” to assault the United States. During their first interval of rule in Kabul, from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban gave haven to al-Qaeda and refused Washington’s demand after 9/11 to expel the group and switch over its chief, Osama bin Laden. The Taliban and al-Qaeda have maintained ties ever since.
“So we’re still trying to sort out exactly how the Taliban is going to proceed against them, and I think over the month or two it’ll become a little more apparent to us,” he mentioned.
Similarly, McKenzie mentioned it’s not but clear how strongly Taliban will go after the Islamic State group, often known as ISIS, which has violently attacked the Taliban throughout the nation. The United States blamed ISIS for an Aug. 26 suicide bombing at Kabul airport that killed 13 American service members within the remaining days of the US evacuation.
ISIS was “reinvigorated,” McKenzie mentioned, by the discharge of quite a few ISIS fighters from Afghan prisons in mid-August. He mentioned each ISIS and al-Qaeda are recruiting from inside and outdoors Afghanistan.
“So certainly we should expect a resurgent ISIS. It would be very surprising if that weren’t the case,” he mentioned, including, “It remains to be seen that the Taliban are going to be able to take effective action against them.”
He referred to as al-Qaeda a harder downside for the Taliban due to their longstanding ties.
“So I think there are internal arguments inside the Taliban about the way forward,” he mentioned. “What we would like to see from the Taliban would be a strong position against al-Qaeda,” which they promised as a part of the February 2020 Doha settlement that dedicated the United States to completely withdrawing from Afghanistan. “But I don’t believe that’s yet been fully realised.”
McKenzie declined to offer an estimate of the variety of al-Qaeda operatives inside Afghanistan.
“I think it’s probably slightly increased,” he mentioned. “There’s a presence. We thought it was down pretty small, you know, toward the end of the conflict. I think some people have probably come back in. But it’s one of the things we look at, but I wouldn’t be confident giving you a number right now.”
