Not likely, at least in the short term, intelligence officials assess. But stopping terrorism groups over the long term could be more difficult.
The Sept.11 attacks led American troops into Afghanistan in 2001 for what became a two-decade war. Now President Biden’s decision to withdraw military forces has prompted a central question: Will the threat of terrorism against America re-emerge from Afghanistan? The answer is no, at least not right away. But over the longer term, the question is far more difficult to answer. The United States could find itself pulled back into Afghanistan much as it was in Iraq, some current and former officials warned. Intelligence officials have offered the Biden administration an overall grim portrait of the future of Afghanistan itself, predicting that the Taliban will make battlefield gains, Afghan government forces will struggle to hold territory and a peace deal between them is unlikely. The broad outlines of that assessment were made public in an intelligence report released on Tuesday. Still, on the critical question of whether direct threats to the United States still exist in Afghanistan, U.S. spy agencies have privately offered a rosier picture. The agencies do not believe Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups pose an immediate threat to strike the United States from Afghanistan, an assessment that the Biden administration considered pivotal as it weighed continuing the war or pulling out forces this year. Al Qaeda planned the Sept.11 attacks from Afghanistan, and in the weeks after the attacks, the United States invaded to oust the terrorist group from its haven and topple the Taliban, which had harbored Al Qaeda, from power. The invasion of Afghanistan ushered in a decades-long era of warfare, with the military fighting grinding counterinsurgency battles in the name of preventing new terrorist attacks on America. Al Qaeda and the Islamic State’s Afghanistan branch remain very weak inside the country, according to three senior officials briefed on the intelligence. Islamic State fighters in Afghanistan are focused on making local gains, not mounting international attacks. And the Taliban remains hostile to the group. Al Qaeda’s relationship with the Taliban is far more complicated. Before the Sept.11 attacks, the Taliban-controlled Afghan government offered safe haven to Al Qaeda. As part of the 2020 peace agreement with the United States, the Taliban agreed to sever ties with terrorist groups including Al Qaeda and prevent them from operating inside Afghanistan. Whether the Taliban intends to honor that agreement is unknown. No one can predict whether Al Qaeda will bounce back or how quickly. But some officials believe that the United States is unlikely to be caught unaware of a renewed Qaeda threat, pointing to U.S. counterterrorism capabilities and intelligence collection built up over the past two decades.
