The Taliban and al Qaeda still allies

 Fox News:

Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahri's death in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is raising questions about whether the country is being used as a base of operations for the terrorist group.

"What unnerves me is that Al Zawahri felt comfortable enough being out in the open in the Kabul area after the Taliban takeover," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. "So much for the Taliban rejecting al Qaeda. This is proof positive that Afghanistan has once again become a safe haven for international terrorists."

National security experts say Zawahri's presence within the country signals a troubling relationship between al Qaeda and the Taliban. The two organizations have long co-existed alongside one another, sharing similar tactics and ideologies.

"There's no doubt that they've been brothers — the Taliban and al Qaeda," said retired four-star Gen. Jack Keane, a former vice chief of staff of the United States Army. "It's not surprising that Zawahri returned to his family in Kabul, in fact, the house that he was in belonged to an aide to a senior Taliban official."
...

Given Zawahri's presence in Afghanistan, national security experts say there are concerns the Taliban is allowing al Qaeda to use the country as its base of operation for conducting terrorism.

"Afghanistan is a petri dish growing threats to the region and beyond," said Dan Hoffman, a former director of the CIA's Middle East and North Africa division. "The one lesson we learned from Sept. 11 is that you can't give these guys ungoverned space."

The White House said Monday that Zawahri had urged his followers in recent weeks to mobilize and attack the United States and its allies. Biden told the public during a prime-time address that Zawahri's death is part of a commitment by the U.S. to "never again allow Afghanistan to become a terrorist" safe haven.

Some national security experts question, however, whether the administration has the resources at its disposal to live up to that pledge.
...

I suspect there are other al Qaeda operatives making their home in Afghanistan since the Biden bug out.  They probably will not be as easy to identify as Zawahiri. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t...
Read more

Is the F-35 obsolete?

Headline USA: Pentagon Fires Back after Musk Calls Its Most Expensive Project ‘Obsolete’ 'Yeah, as I'm sure you can appreciate, Mr. Musk is, currently, a private citizen, I'm not going to make any comments about what a private citizen may have to say about the F-35....'   ... ... Drones appear to be replacing jets for many operations.  The Russia-Ukraine war is an example of that.  Drones are often hard to detect and can be used for intelligence operations as well as for attacking enemy targets.  It would not surprise me to see drones engaging other drones in combat.  They also cost much less than manned fighters.  
Read more