Would Get Help from Taliban To Destroy Al-Qaeda, Says Biden
US President Joe Biden announced that Al-Qaeda is no longer present in Afghanistan. Biden stressed that he had said that “he would get help from the Taliban” to destroy the terror group.
US President Joe Biden announced that Al-Qaeda is no longer present in Afghanistan. Biden stressed that he had said that “he would get help from the Taliban” to destroy the terror group.
During a press conference, Biden said on Friday, "Remember what I said about Afghanistan? I said Al-Qaeda would not be there. I said it wouldn’t be there. I said we would get help from the Taliban. What is going on? Read your press. I was right."
Former US Special Envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, said that Biden's comments on Afghanistan might have come based on a recently declassified National Intelligence Council (NIC) assessment.
Khalilzad, who shared Biden's comments on his Twitter account on Friday night, said that the NIC assessment said that Al-Qaeda has little infrastructure in place in Afghanistan.
Khalilzad added that according to NIC’s report, Al-Qaeda is unlikely to reconstitute the capability in Afghanistan to direct external operations from the country through 2024.
The former US envoy also stressed that according to NIC assessment, if Al-Qaeda decides to carry out attacks globally, it can rely on the attack capabilities of its affiliates in the Middle East and Africa.
However, the UN Security Council has recently warned in a report about the emergence of Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups in Afghanistan.
