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With Taliban in power, Al-Qaida again has a lifeline say US intelligence officials  

Agencies
Updated: August 16th, 2021, 15:32 IST
in Feature, International
0
Taliban soldiers

Taliban fighters take control of Afghan presidential palace after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country AP Photo

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Washington: America’s top general Gen Mark Milley told senators on a briefing call Sunday that the United States could now face a rise in terrorist threats from a Taliban-run Afghanistan. Gen Mark Milley is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The warning comes as intelligence agencies charged with anticipating those threats face new questions after the US-backed Afghan military collapsed with shocking speed.

Less than a week after a military assessment predicted Kabul could be surrounded by insurgents in 30 days, the world Sunday watched stunning scenes of Taliban fighters standing in the Afghan president’s office and crowds of Afghans and foreigners frantically trying to board planes to escape the country.

Milley said that US officials are expected to alter their earlier assessments about the pace of terrorist groups reconstituting in Afghanistan.

In June, the Pentagon’s top leaders said an extremist group like Al-Qaida may be able to regenerate in Afghanistan and pose a threat to the US Homeland within two years of the American military’s withdrawal from the country.

Two decades after the US invaded Afghanistan because the Taliban harboured al-Qaida leaders, experts say the Taliban and Al-Qaida remain aligned, and other violent groups could also find safe haven under the new regime.

Based on the evolving situation, officials now believe terror groups like Al-Qaida may be able to grow much faster than expected, according to the person, who had direct knowledge of the briefing but was not authorised to discuss the details of the call publicly and spoke to this agency on condition of anonymity.

The Biden administration officials on the call with senators – among them were Milley, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin — said U.S. Intelligence agencies are working on forming a new timeline based on the evolving threats, the person familiar with the matter said.

Current and former intelligence officials Sunday pushed back against criticism of what was widely seen as a failure by the agencies to anticipate how fast Kabul could fall.

One senior intelligence official said that ‘a rapid Taliban takeover was always a possibility. “As the Taliban advanced, they ultimately met with little resistance. We have always been clear-eyed that this was possible, and tactical conditions on the ground can often evolve quickly,” the official said.

But President Joe Biden didn’t suggest such an outcome at a July 8 news conference. He said ‘the likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely’. But now Biden’s prophecy has gone wrong and the US faces terror threats again, officials said.

The reduced US troop presence in Afghanistan — down to 2,500 troops at the end of President Donald Trump’s term — may have hindered intelligence efforts in Afghanistan. Retired Lt Gen Robert Ashley, who led the Defence Intelligence Agency until October, said having fewer Americans embedded with Afghan forces meant there was less insight into how those forces would perform.

“It’s very, very difficult to gauge the morale down at the unit level because you’re just not there anymore,” Ashley said. “And I wouldn’t be surprised if Afghan leaders would tell us only what we want to hear anyway,” Ashley added.

Monitoring terrorism threats in Afghanistan will be even more difficult with US troops withdrawing and the Taliban in control. Intelligence agencies in Afghanistan work side by side with troops. Without the same military presence, spies are severely limited in what they can collect about the morale of Afghan troops or support for the Taliban.

 

Tags: Afghanistanal-QaidaintelligenceJoe BidenmilitarytalibanTroopsUS
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China renews war threats as Taiwan launches its military exercises Beijing: China Thursday renewed its threat to attack Taiwan following almost a week of war games near the island. Taiwan has called Beijing's claims to the self-governing democracy “wishful thinking" and launched its own military exercises. Taiwan's “collusion with external forces to seek independence and provocation will only accelerate their own demise and push Taiwan into the abyss of disaster,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a daily briefing. “Their pursuit of Taiwan independence will never succeed, and any attempt to sell the national interest will be met with a complete failure," Wang told reporters. China's attempt to intimidate the Taiwanese public and advertise its strategy for blockading and potentially invading the island was nominally prompted by a visit to Taipei last week by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The US, Japan and allies have denounced the exercises, with the Group of Seven industrialised nations issuing a statement at a recent meeting expressing its concern. On Wednesday, Britain's government summoned Chinese Ambassador Zheng Zeguang to the Foreign Office to demand an explanation of "Beijing's aggressive and wide-ranging escalation against Taiwan”. Taiwan says Beijing used Pelosi's visit as a pretext to raise the stakes in its feud with Taipei, firing missiles into the Taiwan Strait and over the island into the Pacific Ocean. China also sent planes and ships across the midline in the strait that has long been a buffer between the sides, which separated amid civil war in 1949. In a lengthy policy statement on Taiwan issued Wednesday, China distorted the historical record, including the United Nations' 1972 resolution that transferred the China seat on the Security Council from Beijing to Taipei, Taiwan's Cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council said. The Chinese statement also discarded a pledge not to send troops or government officials to Taiwan that was contained in previous statements. The UN resolution makes no mention of Taiwan's status, although China regards it as a foundational document proclaiming the Communist Party's right to control over the island. The Taiwanese council's statement said China was orchestrating its moves against Taiwan ahead of the ruling Communist Party's 20th National Congress to be held later this year. President and party leader Xi Jinping is expected to receive a third five-year term at the conclave, after leading a relentless crackdown on political figures accused of corruption, human rights activists and civil society groups. Xi's suppression of free speech and political opposition in Hong Kong was also seen as a factor behind Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen winning a second term in 2020. China says it plans to annex Taiwan under the now widely discredited “one country, two systems" format applied in Hong Kong. The concept has been thoroughly rejected in Taiwanese public opinion polls in which respondents have overwhelmingly favoured the status-quo of de-facto independence. The Chinese statement is “full of wishful thinking, and ignores the facts," the Mainland Affairs Council said in its press release. The “crude and clumsy political operations by the Beijing authorities further highlight its arrogant thinking pattern of attempting to use force to invade and destroy the Taiwan Strait and regional peace," the release said. “The authorities in Beijing deceive themselves. We warn the Beijing authorities to immediately stop threatening Taiwan with force and spreading false information," it said. Taiwan placed its military under high alert during the Chinese drills but took no direct countermeasures. It held artillery drills off its southwestern coast facing China that ran through Thursday, illustrating the challenges the People's Liberation Army would face were it to launch an invasion across the strait. AP China, Taiwan

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