Is Al Qaeda Going to Become Active Again
On the eve of the 2004 presidential election, Osama bin Laden issued a landmark videotaped statement. In information technology, bin Laden explained how he and his followers were engaged in a "state of war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers." He bragged that, simply as Al Qaeda and the Taliban's predecessors had "bled Russia for 10 years, until it went broke and was forced to withdraw in defeat" from Afghanistan in 1989, the U.Southward. would suffer the same fate.
Al Qaeda's core operation has acquired new credibility and free energy. Crucially, it has also regained its close governing partner in a historically strategic land.
At the time, bin Laden's threat was largely dismissed every bit humbug. Only this by calendar week's tragic events in Afghanistan have proven him prophetic. Al Qaeda has played a critical supporting role in the defeat of two superpowers iii decades apart. Worse nevertheless, much like what followed the Soviet Wedlock'due south far more orderly withdrawal, the Taliban's lightning reconquest of Transitional islamic state of afghanistan recreates the same safe harbor Al Qaeda previously enjoyed. The likelihood that Al Qaeda will soon reconstitute its operating base of operations in its one-time home and resume terror attacks on the Due west has over again become a salient U.South. national security concern.
Indeed, the terror threat that Al Qaeda now presents must non exist ignored or dismissed, as it was in the days leading up to nine/11. Al Qaeda's core operation has acquired new credibility and energy. Crucially, it has also regained its close governing partner in a historically strategic country — a crossroads of southwest asia bordering no fewer than one-half a dozen countries, including China, Iran and nuclear Pakistan.
America'south intentions in Afghanistan immediately after the 9/xi attacks were correct: Employ intelligence avails and a light footprint of U.S. military special operations and regular army working in concert with ethnic partners to stabilize the country and rid it of the terrorist grouping and its enabling host. Washington had largely achieved that goal earlier dramatically shifting its attending to Iraq and diverting critical assets from Afghanistan.
That eventually allowed Ayman al-Zawahri, who took over leadership of Al Qaeda after bin Laden's death, to implement a low-key strategy that diversified or strengthened its geographical bases in the Levant; the Caucasus; north, south and east Africa; Southward Asia; and Southeast Asia. Fifty-fifty if the number of Al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan was relatively minor — in the depression hundreds — their ability to human action every bit force multipliers for the Taliban, providing much-needed intelligence, logistics and tactical support and expertise, is likely to have contributed appreciably to the Taliban's rapid seizure of ability this past week.
The victory by the Taliban, maintaining this solid foundation both inside and outside Transitional islamic state of afghanistan, will boost Al Qaeda immeasurably. In particular, it will enhance its narrative, which is all but certain to inspire unrest and greater efforts from all the terrorist elements in the group's universe.
Close to Afghanistan, Al Qaeda has taken advantage of resurgent Hindu nationalism in India, the land with the world'due south second-largest Muslim population, to shift its personnel focus to recruiting disaffected South Asians, in place of its traditional Middle Eastern Arab constituency. Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, for instance, volition now therefore directly do good from beingness able to operate without constant fear of U.S. strikes.
At the aforementioned time, the Islamic State militant group likewise retains a presence in the region. Already there is speculation that the Taliban'due south victory volition set up in move a broader reconciliation between ISIS and rival jihadi movement Al Qaeda, equally al-Zawahri's patient strategy of engagement through attrition has been vindicated over ISIS' more than aggressive approach. Furthermore, near every extremist faction in Afghanistan will exist strengthened by the release of imprisoned terrorists in that location. It is thus not surprising that U.South. military commanders are alarm Congress that the terrorism threat from Afghanistan is likely to rising almost immediately.
President Joe Biden is correct that the U.South. has vastly improved counterterrorism capabilities both overseas and at home compared to twenty years ago. Merely his withdrawal changes things. To start with, until now we have benefited from an on-the-ground presence providing human being intelligence and ensuring a robust response capacity to the discovery of any terrorist infrastructure in Afghanistan. That is now gone.
Meanwhile, back domicile, the U.Southward. is far more divided politically than it was a generation ago, which makes achieving bipartisan understanding on foreign policy far more difficult. And unlike ii decades ago, the U.S. is at present preoccupied with multiple terrorist threats — domestic as well as the wider array of foreign ones — following the franchising of Al Qaeda and the rise of ISIS.
Back in 2001, the U.S. likewise wasn't nearly as worried about peer competition from China or Russia, and information technology was far less worried nigh Iran, which is now closer to having nuclear weapons and thus may feel less constrained in intervening directly to further destabilize western asia.
The one constant in this fourth dimension has been our proclivity to underestimate our adversaries (who can forget President Barack Obama's early dismissal of the Islamic State as a "JV team"?). Given how wrong so many assumptions almost Transitional islamic state of afghanistan'due south fall have been — well-nigh important, that the Afghan government would retain at least some control of the country and the Taliban would engage in peace talks with it — it is difficult to cover with whatsoever kind of confidence the administration's assurances about Al Qaeda'southward non being capable of striking the U.Due south.
Perhaps the arrangement won't be launching operations from a base of operations in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, merely a reconstituted Al Qaeda in Afghanistan tin can strategize and inspire and fifty-fifty direct attacks far from South asia. We know of repeated efforts in contempo years by its operatives in Syria, for example, to organize attacks on Europe and the U.S. That will be far easier now.
And not only does the withdrawal send a articulate message to the world's terrorists that wars of attrition are a winning strategy; it also tells America's existing and would-be allies that the U.S. isn't capable of being a reliable ally — reinforcing America's similar abandonment of Syria's Kurds. Side by side time the U.S. needs local alliances, nosotros may be hard-pressed to detect them.
Fifty-fifty that fallout, however, would be rosy compared to the worst-case scenario — that the Taliban and Al Qaeda'southward resurgence stokes tension between Pakistan and Bharat, nuclear powers that have clashed over Transitional islamic state of afghanistan in the past.
The Transitional islamic state of afghanistan withdrawal is an unforced foreign policy fault of possibly historic proportions that could accept been avoided had the U.Southward. kept a small permanent military presence in the country so long as the Taliban and Al Qaeda remained active. Information technology's a blunder that volition most harshly be felt by the Afghan people and U.S. counterterrorism interests.
Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/afghanistan-withdrawal-taliban-takeover-mean-terror-threat-back-ncna1276807
0 Response to "Is Al Qaeda Going to Become Active Again"
Post a Comment