Al-Qaeda extremist group has grown a bit inside Afghanistan Since the departure of the US navy on the finish of August, and the nation’s new Taliban chief is split over whether or not to meet his 2020 pledge to sever ties with the group, the area’s prime US commander stated on Thursday.
Marine General Frank McKenzie, the pinnacle of US Central Command, stated in an interview with the Associated Press that US navy departure And intelligence belongings from Afghanistan make it very troublesome to trace al-Qaeda and different extremist teams inside Afghanistan.
“We are probably at about 1 or 2% of the capabilities that we once had to see in Afghanistan,” he stated, including that this makes it “very difficult, if not impossible” to make sure that neither al-Qaeda And neither does the Islamic State group. Afghanistan may pose a menace to the ally United States.
Speaking on the Pentagon, McKenzie stated it was clear that al-Qaeda was making an attempt to rebuild its presence inside Afghanistan, from the place it deliberate the September 11, 2001 assaults towards the United States. He stated some terrorists are getting into the nation by way of its porous borders, however the numbers are troublesome for the US to trace.
The US offensive following the September 11 assaults led to a 20-year battle that originally succeeded in ousting the Taliban from energy however in the end failed. After President Joe Biden introduced in April that he was withdrawing fully from Afghanistan, the Taliban systematically overcame the Afghan authorities’s defenses and captured the capital Kabul in August.
McKenzie and different senior US navy and nationwide safety officers stated earlier than the US withdrawal that it might complicate efforts to maintain a lid on al-Qaeda’s menace, partly as a result of loss and absence of intelligence on the bottom. US pleasant authorities in Kabul. The US says it is going to depend on airstrikes from drones and different plane past Afghanistan’s borders to reply to any extremist menace towards the American homeland.
McKenzie stated there had been no such assaults because the US accomplished its withdrawal from Afghanistan on August 30. He added that the US’s means to conduct such assaults relies on the provision of intelligence, overhead imagery and different data and communications, “and this architecture is still being developed.” Al-Qaeda is one among a number of extremist teams inside Afghanistan. After 2001, it misplaced most of its numbers and the flexibility to instantly threaten American territory, however Mackenzie stated it had “an aspirational desire” to assault the United States. During the primary interval of their rule in Kabul from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban sheltered al-Qaeda and declined Washington’s demand to expel the group and hand over its chief Osama bin Laden after 9/11. The Taliban and al-Qaeda have maintained ties since then.
“So we’re still trying to figure out how the Taliban will proceed against them, and I think in a month or two it will become a little more clear to us,” he stated.
Similarly, McKenzie stated it was not but clear how strongly the Taliban would comply with the Islamic State group, also called ISIS, which has launched violent assaults on Taliban throughout the nation. The United States blamed ISIS for the August 26 suicide bombing at Kabul airport, which killed 13 American service members within the ultimate days of the US evacuation.
By the discharge of a number of ISIS fighters from Afghan prisons in mid-August, McKenzie stated, ISIS was “revived”. He stated each ISIS and al-Qaeda are recruiting from inside and outdoors Afghanistan.
“So of course we should expect a resurgence of ISIS. It would be very surprising if that doesn’t happen,” he stated, including that “it remains to be seen whether the Taliban are going to be able to take effective action against them.”
He described al-Qaeda as a tougher drawback due to their longstanding ties to the Taliban.
“So I think there are internal arguments inside the Taliban about the way forward,” he stated. “What we want to see from the Taliban will be a stronger position against al-Qaeda,” he promised as a part of the February 2020 Doha Agreement that dedicated the United States to an entire withdrawal of Afghanistan. did. “But I don’t believe that has been fully realized yet.”
McKenzie declined to offer an estimate of the variety of al-Qaeda operatives inside Afghanistan.
“I think it’s probably increased a bit,” he stated. “There’s a presence. We thought it was too small, you know, toward the end of the conflict. I think some people are probably back. But it’s one of those things that we look at, but me Wouldn’t have the confidence to give you a number right now.”
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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
