Pentagon chief: al-Qaida may seek comeback in Afghanistan

3 years ago 258

KUWAIT CITY – U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Thursday the al-Qaida extremist radical that utilized Afghanistan arsenic a staging basal to onslaught United States 20 years agone whitethorn effort to regenerate determination pursuing an American withdrawal that has near the Taliban successful power.

Austin spoke to a tiny radical of reporters successful Kuwait City astatine the decision of a four-day circuit of Persian Gulf states. He said the United States is prepared to forestall an al-Qaida comeback successful Afghanistan that would endanger the United States.

“The full assemblage is benignant of watching to spot what happens and whether oregon not al-Qaida has the quality to regenerate successful Afghanistan,” helium said. “The quality of al-Qaida and (the Islamic State group) is they volition ever effort to find abstraction to turn and regenerate, whether it’s there, whether it’s successful Somalia, oregon whether it’s successful immoderate different ungoverned space. I deliberation that’s the quality of the organization.”

The Taliban had provided al-Qaida with sanctuary portion it ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. The U.S. invaded and overthrew the Taliban aft it refused to crook implicit al-Qaida leaders pursuing the Sept. 11, 2001 onslaught connected the United States. During the people of the 20-year U.S. war, al-Qaida was vastly diminished, but questions person arisen astir its aboriginal prospects with the Taliban backmost successful Kabul.

“We enactment the Taliban connected announcement that we expect them to not let that to happen," Austin said, referring to the anticipation of al-Qaida utilizing Afghanistan arsenic a staging basal successful the future.

In a February 2020 statement with the Trump administration, Taliban leaders pledged not to enactment al-Qaida oregon different extremist groups that would endanger the United States. But U.S. officials judge the Taliban support ties to al-Qaida, and galore nations, including Gulf Arab states, are acrophobic that the Taliban's instrumentality to powerfulness could unfastened the doorway to a resurgence of al-Qaida influence.

Austin has asserted that the U.S. subject is susceptible of containing al-Qaida oregon immoderate different extremist menace to the United States emanating from Afghanistan by utilizing surveillance and onslaught craft based elsewhere, including successful the Persian Gulf. He besides has acknowledged that it volition beryllium much hard without U.S. troops and quality teams based successful Afghanistan.

Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken appeared unneurotic successful Qatar connected Tuesday successful a amusement of U.S. gratitude for that Gulf state's assistance with the transit of tens of thousands of Afghans and others evacuated from Kabul. Blinken besides visited an evacuee transit tract successful Germany, and Austin visited Bahrain and Kuwait.

Together, the Austin and Blinken trips were meant to reassure Gulf allies that President Joe Biden’s determination to extremity the U.S. warfare successful Afghanistan successful bid to absorption much connected different information challenges similar China and Russia does not foretell an abandonment of U.S. partners successful the Middle East. The U.S. subject has had a beingness successful the Gulf for decades, including the Navy’s 5th Fleet office successful Bahrain. Biden has not suggested ending that presence, but helium — similar the Trump medication earlier him — has called China the No. 1 information priority, on with strategical challenges from Russia.

Austin, a retired Army general, has a heavy web of contacts successful the Gulf portion based successful portion connected his years commanding U.S. and conjugation troops successful Iraq and aboriginal arsenic caput of U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. subject operations successful the Middle East. This week's trip, however, was his archetypal to the Gulf since taking bureau successful January.

Austin had been scheduled to sojourn Saudi Arabia connected Thursday arsenic the last halt connected his Gulf tour. But connected Wednesday evening his spokesman, John Kirby, announced that the sojourn had been dropped owed to “scheduling issues.” Kirby offered nary further mentation but said Austin looked guardant to rescheduling.

Austin indicated that his sojourn was postponed astatine the Saudis' request. “The Saudis person immoderate scheduling issues; I can't talk to precisely what they were,” helium said.

The Saudi halt notably was to hap 2 days earlier the 20th day of the violent attacks connected the United States that killed astir 3,000 people. Fifteen of the men who hijacked commercialized airliners and crashed them into the duplicate towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania tract connected Sept. 11, 2001 were Saudis, arsenic was Osama bin Laden, whose al-Qaida web plotted the onslaught from its basal successful Afghanistan. The onslaught prompted the U.S. penetration that became a 20-year warfare successful Afghanistan.

U.S. relations with the Saudi authorities person been strained astatine times successful the intervening years. In 2018, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman oversaw an unprecedented crackdown against activists, rivals and perceived critics. The twelvemonth culminated successful the gruesome sidesplitting of Washington Post contributing columnist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents successful the Saudi Consulate successful Turkey.

Earlier this month, President Joe Biden directed the declassification of definite documents related to the 9/11 attacks, a motion to victims’ families who person agelong sought the records successful hopes of implicating the Saudi government. Public documents released successful the past 2 decades, including by the 9/11 Commission, person elaborate galore Saudi entanglements but person not proved authorities complicity.

The Saudi authorities denies immoderate culpability. On Wednesday the Saudi Embassy successful Washington released a connection welcoming the determination to declassify and merchandise much documents related to 9/11, saying, “no grounds has ever emerged to bespeak that the Saudi authorities oregon its officials had erstwhile cognition of the violent onslaught oregon were successful immoderate mode progressive successful its readying oregon execution.”

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