almost two years afterthe chaotic US military withdrawal In Afghanistan, President Joe Biden’s statement that the Taliban is helping the United States drive Al-Qaeda out of the country has reignited controversy over the presence of terrorist groups in that country and the agreement that ended the Afghan war.
“Remember what I said about Afghanistan? I said that al-Qaeda would not be there. I said I wouldn’t be there. I said we would get help from the Taliban,” Biden said Friday. “What is happening now? What is happening? Read the press. I was right.”
The president made the comments in response to a question about a recent State Department report. which highlighted the shortcomings of the Trump and Biden administrations in the frenzied US military withdrawal in August 2021.
Biden’s comments sparked immediate controversy.
Rahmatullah Nabil, former head of Afghanistan’s National Security Directorate from 2010 to 2012, reiterated his criticism of the peace agreement of the administration of President Donald Trump in 2020 and joked that these Biden comments made the Taliban look like a US paramilitary partner, similar to Russia’s Wagner mercenaries.
Under the Doha pact, in exchange for Washington withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan, the Taliban agreed to prevent the country from becoming a haven for terrorists and to stop attacking members of the US security forces.
Biden’s claims also contradict a February United Nations report that concluded that terrorist groups, including Al-Qaeda, “enjoy greater freedom of movement in Afghanistan due to the Taliban’s absence of an effective security strategy.” .
End America’s Longest War
Asked to clarify Biden’s comments, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the president had to make a difficult decision to end the war longest in the nation.
A US intelligence official who spoke to the voice of america On condition of anonymity, he clarified that when referring to the “help” of the Taliban, Biden was referring to the Taliban operation that killed a leader of ISIS-K, also known as the Khorasan Islamic State, an affiliate of the terrorist group in April. Afghanistan.
A UN report released earlier this year concluded that al-Qaeda is expected to remain in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future, maintaining the country as “the leading source of terrorist threat to Central and South Asia.”
The Biden Administration has dismissed the UN report since its publication, emphasizing that Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan does not pose a threat.
The official explained to the VOA that the government assesses that the terrorist group “does not have the capacity to launch attacks against the United States or its interests abroad from Afghanistan.”
“We have no indication that individuals from al-Qaeda in Afghanistan are involved in the conspiracy of an external attack,” he said. “Of course, we will continue to monitor closely.”
Taliban foreign spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi welcomed Biden’s comments as “an acknowledgment of the reality” that no terrorist entity was operating in Afghanistan under the group’s rule.
Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the South Asia Program at the Wilson Center, is skeptical. the taliban they have persecuted their bitter rivalISIS-K, but they have done little to curb the presence of al Qaeda and most other terrorist groups in Afghanistan, he told the VOA.
Republican criticism
Republicans, including former vice president and now presidential candidate Mike Pence, have launched criticism of the State Department report.
“The blame for what happened here falls squarely on the current commander in chief,” Pence told the television network. CBS on Sunday. He claimed that the “disastrous withdrawal” would never have happened under Trump.
The report, however, concluded that the decisions by both Biden and Trump to end the US military mission in Afghanistan had “serious consequences for the viability of the Afghan government and its security.”
The inquiry also noted that the State Department “faced a task of unprecedented complexity” in implementing an evacuation with a scope and scale that was “highly unusual, not comparable since the US exit from Vietnam in 1975.”
After the rapid capture of the afghan capitalKabul, by the Taliban, the US evacuated about 125,000 people, including nearly 6,000 US citizens.
The administration said it has helped resettle 88,500 Afghan allies since the withdrawal, while activists say tens of thousands still remain behind.
[Con la contribución de los periodistas de la VOA, Sayed Aziz Rahman y Jeff Seldin]
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