AFTER AMERICA PULLS OUT, WILL AFGHANISTAN BECOME TERROR SAFE HAVEN?
Intelligence officials offer grim portrait of future as Biden announces decision to ‘end America’s longest war’
The September 11 attacks led US troops into Afghanistan in 2001 for what became a two-decade war. Now President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw military forces has prompted a central question: Will the threat of terrorism against America reemerge from Afghanistan?
The answer is no, at least not right away. But over the longer term, the question is far more difficult to answer. The US could find itself pulled back into Afghanistan much as it was in Iraq, some current and former officials warned. The assessment came as Biden formally announced his decision last night to fully withdraw US forces from Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, declaring it’s “time for America’s troops to come home”.
“We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan hoping to create the ideal conditions for our withdrawal, expecting a different result,” Biden said, announcing the withdrawal from the Treaty Room of the White House, where President George W. Bush announced the beginning of US airstrikes in Afghanistan almost two decades ago. “It is time to end America’s longest war,” Biden said.
Biden talks to Ghani
Biden also spoke with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani yesterday and the two expressed continued commitment to a strong bilateral partnership, the White House said. “Biden emphasised that the US will continue to support the Afghan people, including through continued development, humanitarian, and security assistance,” it said in a statement.
But intelligence officials have offered the Biden administration an overall grim portrait of the future of Afghanistan itself, predicting that the Taliban will make battlefield gains, Afghan government forces will struggle to hold territory and a peace deal between them is unlikely.
Still, on the critical question of whether direct threats to the US still exist in Afghanistan, US spy agencies have privately offered a rosier picture. The agencies do not believe Al Qaida or other terrorist groups pose an immediate threat to strike the US from Afghanistan.
Al Qaida planned the 9/11 attacks from Afghanistan, and in the weeks after the attacks, the US invaded to topple the Taliban from power.
Al Qaida and Daesh’s Afghanistan branch remain very weak inside the country, according to three senior officials briefed on the intelligence. Daesh fighters in Afghanistan are focused on making local gains, not mounting international attacks. And the Taliban remains hostile to the group. Al Qaida’s relationship with the Taliban is more complicated.
Over the longer term, the United States could find itself pulled back into Afghanistan much as it was in Iraq, some current and former intelligence officials have warned.
Honouring agreement
As part of the 2020 peace agreement with the US, the Taliban agreed to sever ties with terrorist groups. But whether the Taliban intends to honour that agreement is unknown.
No one can predict whether Al Qaida will bounce back or how quickly. But some officials
believe that the US is unlikely to be caught unaware of a renewed Al Qaida threat. “The terrorism threat from the Afghan region is not zero, but, at the moment, it’s less than it is in other parts of the world,” Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said. “So the question is, can we continue to suppress the terrorism threat” from southwest Asia “without our troops being on the ground in Afghanistan?”
If the US withdraws from Afghanistan, it is not clear whether Al Qaida could rebuild a base there for carrying out terrorist attacks against the US. And even if Al Qaida could rebound, some have asked if the group might choose another lawless region over Afghanistan.
Collecting intelligence
“What is that threat really going to be?” Adam Smith, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said last month. “This isn’t the 1990s when Al Qaida set up camps, and they had the Taliban and no one was paying attention to them.” But collecting intelligence will become far more difficult once US troops leave. While some counterterror operations against terrorists inside Afghanistan can be conducted from far-flung bases outside the country, they are risky and difficult to pull off. Biden or future presidents may be reluctant to approve them.
And with a weakened Afghan government facing pressure from the Taliban, conditions would be ripe for Al Qaida cells to grow, some officials said. “Ungoverned spaces, let alone a known terrorist organisation like the Taliban, is altogether an ideal breeding ground for disparate terrorist groups that threaten the US to find save haven and shelter,” said Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA officer and counterterrorism expert.
Though the threat from terror groups operating from Afghanistan is low, it might not stay that way, said Michael P. Mulroy, a former Pentagon official. Once the troops leave, he said, that pressure will decline and the ability to collect intelligence in the region will suffer.