Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s team plans to conduct a “reassessment” of whether Afghanistan will function as a haven for terrorist groups following the Taliban’s rapid conquest of Kabul.
“It’s way too early to make assessments and judgments about what the terrorism threat is going to be in Afghanistan going forward,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters during a Monday briefing. “The secretary certainly believes that, in light of recent events, that a reassessment of the possibilities for reconstitution of terrorist networks inside Afghanistan is warranted.”
Taliban fighters have surged across the country in recent months after President Joe Biden ordered the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces and the Afghan military collapsed in the absence of American support. Biden justified that decision by observing last month that “terrorism is not emanating from that part of the world.”
But the failure of the Afghan military to fight the Taliban into a stalemate to necessitate good-faith peace talks has raised the risk terrorists driven from Iraq, Syria and elsewhere will look to Afghanistan.
“The Taliban being in power is going to act as a magnet for … international terrorist groups and regional terrorist groups to be able to find space where they can at least hang around, plan, attract more recruits,” an Indo-Pacific intelligence official who has deployed in Afghanistan told the Washington Examiner. “So, I believe that in a period of one year, within about a year’s time, you will have a problem. And that is what’s worrying.”
‘GUNFIRE AT THE AIRPORT’: US OFFICIALS EVACUATE EMBASSY AS TALIBAN ENTER KABUL
Those concerns have been overshadowed by the urgent need to evacuate diplomats and American citizens from the country in recent days, as well as the thousands of Afghan nationals facing retaliation for working with the U.S. government or other U.S. entities. A crowd of Afghan civilians desperate to leave with Americans rushed the planes leaving Hamid Karzai International Airport on Sunday, and footage emerged appearing to show people falling to their deaths from a departing C-17.
“All the images coming out are of concern and troubling, and we want to do this in a safe and efficient and as orderly a way as possible,” Kirby said. “And that is why right now, our troops are focused on making a safe and secure environment at the airport and clearing people in the crowds off of the tarmac and the flight line so that flights can resume. That’s our focus right now.”
The Taliban takeover has put more pressure on U.S. officials to evacuate Afghan nationals who worked with the government but whose visa applications remain unprocessed. U.S. officials began flying the interpreters to Fort Lee, Virginia, in late July, but Austin gave the green light this week to prepare two other bases in the United States.
“Our aim at these three facilities would be over time, three to four weeks from now, be able to provide support for up to 22,000 at-risk individuals,” Kirby said. “We will not have that capacity immediately. It will take some time to build it out.”
In the meantime, U.S. troops are still streaming into the Kabul airport to provide security. About 2,500 troops are present at the airport now, Kirby said, and that figure is expected to reach 3,000 by Tuesday.
“We’ll continue to expand our presence as needed,” Kirby said.
The chaotic display was applauded by Iran-backed Palestinian terrorists.
“The Taliban are victorious today after being accused of backwardness and terrorism,” Hamas’s Mousa Abu Marzouk tweeted Monday. “They confronted America and its agents, and refused to compromise with them. They were not deceived by bright headlines about ‘democracy’ and ‘elections.’”
The United Nations Security Council urged the Taliban, having taken over the capital city, to negotiate the formation of a “new government that is united, inclusive and representative — including with the full, equal and meaningful participation of women.”
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“The members of the Security Council reaffirmed the importance of combating terrorism in Afghanistan to ensure the territory of Afghanistan should not be used to threaten or attack any country, and that neither the Taliban nor any other Afghan group or individual should support terrorists operating on the territory of any other country,” the UN Security Council statement also said.
