The United States and NATO invaded Afghanistan 20 years in the past in response to the terrorist assaults of 9/11 by al-Qaida, harboured by the Taliban.
Now that the Taliban are again in energy, there are already worries that Afghanistan will once more change into a breeding floor for Islamic radicalism and terrorism, aided by new applied sciences and social media.
These are early days and consultants disagree on how the Taliban could select to control and on how massive a risk they may change into, or how shortly.
But there may be little doubt that the Taliban victory is a big propaganda enhance for Islamic terrorism worldwide. Some predict that after 20 years, the Taliban have discovered some classes and are unlikely to repeat their help for teams like al-Qaida and the Islamic State, figuring out the results.
Others, particularly in Washington, consider the Taliban is sort of sure to repeat its encouragement of Islamic terrorist teams and assume that the probabilities of one other assault on the United States and its allies are a lot larger now.
Nathan Sales, the previous US coordinator for counterterrorism and a senior fellow on the Atlantic Council, argues that “the terrorism risk to the United States is going to get dramatically worse.” With the Taliban again in energy, he stated, “it’s just about sure that al-Qaida will re-establish a secure haven in Afghanistan and use it to plot terrorism in opposition to the United States and others.’’
Other consultants are much less certain.
“We went into Afghanistan to address the terrorist threat, and it will be a critical measure of whether what we have is just a bad situation or a truly awful one,” stated John Sawers, former head of Britain’s international intelligence service, often called MI6. “To have a friend of terrorists, which Taliban have been, running a whole country is not a good thing.”
But the Taliban may have “learned some lessons in the last 20 years,” stated Sawers, govt chairman of Newbridge Advisory, a risk-analysis agency. “The question is always how much control the leadership negotiating in Doha has over the fighters, since traditionally in civil wars those on the battlefield have more power than those who sit in five-star hotels,” referring to the Taliban leaders who’ve carried out diplomacy from Qatar.
Islamic radicals everywhere in the world will get “a much-needed boost” from the Taliban’s victory over the “Great Satan,” the United States, stated Peter Neumann, professor of safety research at King’s College London.
“The supporters of al-Qaida are all celebrating this,” he stated. “It’s a victory over America, which is what they hope to achieve — these fighters coming down from the mountains to defeat the United States. A lot of groups will piggyback on this victory in propaganda terms — if the Taliban can do it, you can do it.”
On social media and in chat rooms, “You can already see this wind of success blowing through the sails of the global jihadist movement,” stated Raffaello Pantucci, a terrorism analyst on the Royal United Services Institute, a defence analysis physique, and on the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
“They see victory in Afghanistan as the apex of a number of successes in the world, in parts of Africa, in parts of Syria, with the French pulling out of Mali — it’s a narrative of success,” he stated. “They will push it and argue that you can fight for 20 years and get power.”
So a extra speedy danger would be the encouragement of “lone actors” to commit native acts of terrorism, one of many primary targets of the social media marketing campaign, Neumann stated.
But he believes that the probability that the Taliban will shortly present a secure haven for teams like al-Qaida and Islamic State is small. The Taliban are in energy once more with out the assistance of al-Qaida, they usually have understood that they misplaced their authorities and their nation in 2001 due to al-Qaida, Neumann stated.
The United States may intervene once more, “not to protect human and women’s rights, but if the Taliban allowed international terrorism to flourish,” he stated.
The Taliban must take care of remnants of al-Qaida and Islamic State already current in Afghanistan, Sawers stated. “They won’t move against them, but they don’t want to attract international hostility again.”
Their first precedence, he stated, will probably be to consolidate management over a fragmented Afghanistan, together with “some kind of understanding” with minorities just like the Uzbeks and Shia Muslims just like the Hazaras and Ismailis. “The Talib have won this great victory and won’t want to mess it up now,” he stated.
Others, like Sales, are certain that the Taliban will permit al-Qaida to function once more in opposition to the United States.
He notes that US intelligence capabilities in Afghanistan will probably be degraded with no navy or diplomatic presence on the bottom and with US troops and drones based mostly a whole lot of miles away.
The Taliban have at all times refused to interrupt with “their stalwart ally, al-Qaida,” regardless that they promised to take action within the February 2020 settlement with the Trump administration, Sales stated. He expects al-Qaida, flush with new cash and recruits, to reestablish itself in Afghanistan within the subsequent three to 6 months.
In June, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have been requested by senators concerning the probabilities that teams like al-Qaida and the Islamic State might reemerge in Afghanistan and pose a risk to the US homeland inside two years of the US navy withdrawal.
“I would assess it as medium,” Austin replied then. “I would also say, senator, that it would take possibly two years for them to develop that capability.”
On Sunday, Milley advised senators on a briefing name that US officers have been quickly revising these earlier assessments, The Associated Press reported. Officials now consider that such teams might develop significantly sooner and are engaged on a brand new timeline, he advised the senators.