Afghanistan is not the most urgent terrorist threat to the United States, even after the Taliban took over, the Biden administration’s top intelligence official said on Monday.
The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the collapse of the U.S.-backed government have created challenges for information gathering in the country, said Avril D. Haines, director of intelligence national. But he added that Afghanistan is not the main threat of global terrorism facing the United States.
“As for the homeland, the threat of terrorist groups right now, we don’t prioritize at the top of the Afghanistan list,” he said. “What we are looking at is Yemen, Somalia, Syria and Iraq for ISIS. And this is where we see the biggest threat.”
Yemen is the base of a Qaeda ramp that has attempted to attack the United States. Somalia has Al Shabab, a terrorist group that regularly attacks neighboring Kenya. Despite declining, the Islamic State still operates in Syria and has launched attacks on Iraq.
Long before the withdrawal from Afghanistan, Biden administration officials said parts of the Middle East and Africa were more urgent terrorist threats than Afghanistan, although they argued before a swift col. · Lapse of the Afghan government. Since the Taliban took office last month, military officials have said Al Qaeda could rebuild its presence in Afghanistan more quickly than previously estimated.
Intelligence officials have said the most immediate threat to Afghanistan is the Islamic State affiliate in the country, which carried out the suicide bombing that killed dozens of Afghans and 13 members of the service. American on August 26th.
Although Ms. Haines did not offer any assessment of the groups operating in Afghanistan, she said a major focus of the agencies she oversees is overseeing “any possible reconstitution of terrorist organizations.”
In statements by videoconference at the annual National Intelligence and Security Summit, Ms. Haines acknowledged that without American troops on the ground, intelligence gathering in Afghanistan would be reduced.
“This is something we have to prepare and we have been preparing, frankly, for quite some time,” he said.
Intelligence agencies have been largely silent on how they intend to gather information, although current and former officials have said they will work with pro-US Afghans who remain in the country and will continue to intercept communications.
Overall, the threat of a foreign-sponsored terrorist attack in the United States has diminished in recent years, he said. But even if they cannot carry out attacks easily from overseas, terrorist groups remain able to ideologically inspire violent extremism in their homes, he said.
“This is something we also control and fight so that we can try to reduce the hatred and vitriol, frankly, on which terrorism is based and the tragic consequences it has for our society,” he said.