Intelligence officials said Al Qaeda could become a threat to the U.S. homeland in a year, using Afghanistan as a base once again.
The U.S.-designated terrorist group will likely try to rebuild itself in Afghanistan, now that the Taliban are back in control and the United States has withdrawn all its troops.
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“The current assessment, probably conservative, is one to two years for al-Qaeda to build some capacity to at least threaten its homeland,” said Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, director of the Intelligence Agency. the Defense, Tuesday National Security Summit. Berrier promised that “DIA will not withdraw its sight from terrorism.”
CIA Deputy Director David Cohen said the difficult question to answer about the “timeline” of the terrorist threat emanating from Afghanistan is when Al Qaeda or ISIS-K, the Afghan branch of the group terrorist, will have the ability to attack American soil.
“I think the one- to two-year calendar sounds good,” Cohen said. “We are already starting to see some of the indications of some possible al-Qaeda movement towards Afghanistan, but these are the first few days and we will obviously keep a very close eye on that.”
The duo also spoke about the importance of trying to redevelop the country’s media to gather information.
“We’re thinking of ways to re-access Afghanistan with all sorts of sources and accesses,” Berrier said. “So we are prioritizing this effort, we continue to prioritize it, but we must be careful to balance these scarce resources with this pivot to China and Russia.”
The revelations come a month after the disastrous US withdrawal from Afghanistan, which Berrier acknowledged leaves the country at a disadvantage.
“Of course, our current capacity in Afghanistan is not what it was six months ago, nor a year ago,” he said. presence of the agency in Afghanistan “.
Fear of al-Qaeda’s return to Afghanistan may have materialized a few days ago when a video of the life test featured Ayman al Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s deputy who later took over the group. of bin Laden’s death in 2011.
He referred to the attack by al-Qaeda-affiliated Tanzim Hurras ad-Din (Organization of the Guardians of Religion) against a Russian military base in Syria in early January 2021, showing that Zawahiri appeared to be alive in early January. year.
In addition, Dr. Amin al-Haq, bin Laden’s security chief, received a warm welcome when he returned to Afghanistan in August after the fall of Kabul, with a video showing him guarded by a large convoy of armed Taliban fighters.
National Intelligence Director Avril Haines, who spoke virtually at the Maryland conference, argued that the terrorist threat against the United States in Afghanistan does not match the challenge posed by terrorists in other countries. .
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“When we look at terrorism more broadly, what we see from the perspective of international terrorism is that the threat has diminished over time,” Haines said. “And when it comes to the homeland … we don’t prioritize at the top of the Afghanistan list.”
“What we’re looking at is Yemen and Somalia, Syria and Iraq for ISIS – and that’s where we see the biggest threat,” he said. “And in Afghanistan, we want to control any possible reconstitution of terrorist organizations, and that is obviously a big focus for us.”
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Tags: News, Taliban, Al Qaeda, Afghanistan, military, defense, national security
Original author: Mike Brest and Jerry Dunleavy
Original location: Al Qaeda could develop the ability to attack the American homeland in a year or two, according to Intel officials