Myopic Europe is courting an Afghan disaster

European leaders in Nato seem to have forgotten they entered Afghanistan to deny terrorists a base

In the long and bloody history of Islamist terror attacks against the West since 9/11, jihadi militants have concentrated much of their efforts on targeting major European cities. London, Paris, Nice, Berlin, Brussels, Madrid, Istanbul: the roll call of European population centres that have fallen victim to the hideous effects of modern-day terrorism is not confined to countries like Britain that have played a prominent role in tackling groups such as al-qaeda and Isil.

Moreover, one of the defining characteristics of the wave of atrocities that have been committed against the Western world in recent years is that a great many of them originated from Afghanistan and the surrounding area, especially the lawless tribal territories on the border with Pakistan.

It was here that, 20 years ago next month, Osama bin Laden planned his devastating attacks on New York and Washington, while the leaders of the 2005 London bombings were later found to have travelled regularly to Pakistan for training.

The ease with which Afghan-based Islamist terror groups have been able to plot and execute their deadly terror attacks against the West was the primary motivation behind the creation of the Us-led Nato mission to bring stability and security to Afghanistan, thereby denying terror groups the bases required to put their diabolical plans into effect.

One of the key calculations, for example, in Tony Blair’s decision to deploy British forces to Helmand Province in the summer of 2006 in support of the US intervention was to ensure there was no repeat of the London attacks.

And, while the Nato mission has proved both costly and controversial, it has nevertheless succeeded in achieving its primary objective: preventing Afghanistan and the surrounding tribal areas from being used as terrorist safe havens.

When the first British troops arrived in Helmand, British intelligence officials estimated that at least 80 per cent of Islamist terror plots against the UK originated from the Afghan region. Today, it is almost zero, as al-qaeda, along with more recent manifestations of Islamist terrorism such as Isil, have been forced to relocate their operations to other failed or failing states, such as Syria and Libya.

Now, with the US preparing to conclude its two decades-long commitment to Afghanistan at the end of this month, there is a very real prospect that the country could once again become a safe haven for Islamist terror outfits such as al-qaeda, the group that was originally granted sanctuary by the Taliban in the late 1990s and is now busily seizing control of large swathes of the country vacated by the withdrawing Americans.

Evidence has already emerged that former al-qaeda fighters are flocking to join the Taliban as they look forward to the creation of another uncompromising Islamist regime in Kabul, while Isil militants have taken advantage of the collapse in the Afghan government’s authority to regroup and launch a fresh wave of attacks against both Afghan and Western targets in the country.

In such circumstances, and given Europe’s well-documented vulnerability to Islamist terrorism, it might be expected that, with the US president Joe Biden refusing to reconsider his exit strategy, European leaders would want to take measures of their own to help ensure that the Taliban does not return to power.

That is certainly the case in London where, despite the protocols of the so-called “special relationship”, senior military officers and ministers have made clear their displeasure with the Biden administration’s cut-and-run strategy.

With the Afghan security forces, many of whose senior officers have graduated from Sandhurst, clearly struggling to contain the Taliban’s offensive, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace was keen to form a military coalition with other European Nato states to prevent the country being overrun by Islamist militants.

Yet, despite the threat that a Taliban takeover would pose to European security, not a single country has been prepared to back the British initiative, with the result that, when the US completes its withdrawal, so will the rest of the Nato alliance, leaving the beleaguered Afghans to fend for themselves.

Given the less-than-impressive performance of our European allies in Afghanistan during the past decade, this will hardly come as a surprise. The German contingent, for example, was so combat-averse that its soldiers rarely left their barracks, while other major European contributors, such as Italy and France, abandoned the mission the moment it became politically expedient to do so.

The disinclination of Europe’s leading powers to support the Afghan security forces, though, could ultimately prove to be self-defeating. For, tempting as it is to believe that Afghan-based Islamist militants no longer pose a threat to our well-being, Europe’s failure to defend its interests simply makes it a sitting duck for a fresh wave of deadly terrorist attacks.