ISIS using Afghanistan for planning attacks, classified leak suggests
Mike Brest
Video Embed
The terror threat emanating from Afghanistan has continued to grow in the nearly two years since U.S. troops departed in August 2021.
Afghanistan has become a coordination site for the Islamic State as the group plans for attacks across Europe and Asia while conducting “aspirational plotting” against the United States, according to the Washington Post, which reported on a newly discovered leaked document from the trove that shook the U.S. government in recent weeks.
ESPER ACCUSES BIDEN OF ‘TRYING TO REWRITE’ HISTORY ON AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL
The intelligence findings included specific intentions from ISIS to target embassies, churches, business centers, and the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament, which took place last summer in Qatar. By February, the Pentagon was aware of 15 plots coordinated by ISIS leaders in Afghanistan.
“ISIS has been developing a cost-effective model for external operations that relies on resources from outside Afghanistan, operatives in target countries, and extensive facilitation networks,” the assessment states, which is labeled top secret. “The model will likely enable ISIS to overcome obstacles — such as competent security services — and reduce some plot timelines, minimizing disruption opportunities.”
While the specifics of ISIS plots had not been released, Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, the commander of U.S. Central Command, warned in recent weeks that Islamic State militants in Afghanistan — known as Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-K — will have the ability to launch external attacks in less than six months.
“It is my commander’s estimate that they can do an external operation against U.S. or Western interests abroad in under six months with little to no warning,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee at a mid-March hearing. “It is much harder for them to be able to do that against the homeland.”
Within the final weeks of the U.S. military’s presence in Afghanistan, the Taliban launched a military offensive, quickly toppling the Afghan army and the U.S.-backed Ghani government. The military then launched a two weekslong noncombatant emergency operation that resulted in the evacuation of more than 120,000 Afghans who wanted to flee the country, though they left thousands of allies behind.
In the final days of the evacuation, an ISIS-K terrorist detonated a suicide bomb outside the gates surrounding the Kabul airport where the flights out of the country were taking place. Thirteen U.S. service members were killed in the blast while another roughly 170 Afghans were killed.
Since the withdrawal, the U.S. military has maintained its counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan from afar. It can launch strikes against specific targets from outside the country, though it’s extremely difficult to obtain the intelligence needed to conduct such a mission.
“It is difficult right now, as I said in my confirmation hearing. It’s difficult but not impossible,” Kurilla said during his testimony. “One of the things that we are trying to do is increase our intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance over that. We’re putting investment into long-duration high-altitude, alternative airborne ISR that can go up for days and weeks.”
In the roughly 20 months since leaving, the U.S. has conducted one such strike, in July 2022, that targeted Ayman al Zawahiri, the successor of Osama bin Laden in al Qaeda’s leadership.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The Biden administration faced scrutiny for the chaotic withdrawal at the time, and more recently as well amid a spate of congressional investigations into the end of the war, in addition to a recently released unclassified summary of its after-action report that placed much of the blame for what happened on the Trump administration.
The after-action release resulted in substantial backlash from conservatives who are likely to reengage in this attack against the president given the new insight on the terror threat in Afghanistan. The document was one of a couple hundred allegedly leaked by Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Douglas Teixeira, who has been charged with unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information and unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material.