|
Long, detailed, and with a useful map. Herewith, the opening set-up: [LongWarJournal] On the eve of the 22nd anniversary of Al Qaeda’s deadly attacks on New York and Washington, American intelligence officials further minimized the terror group’s safe haven in Afghanistan and its global reach. The U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that “Al Qaeda is at its historical nadir in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and its revival is unlikely” is directly at odds with intelligence gleaned by the United Nations Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, which recently reported that Al Qaeda is running training camps, safe houses, and a media operations center throughout Afghanistan.
The assessment of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan was briefed to reporters on Sept. 8 by two unnamed U.S. intelligence officials. In addition to Al Qaeda being at a “historical nadir,” its “ability to threaten the United States from Afghanistan or Pakistan is probably at its lowest point,” the officials claimed, according to CNN.
Oddly, the intelligence officials surmised that Al Qaeda is weak because the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan meant that Al Qaeda fighters no longer had a “proving ground” to battle U.S. forces.
Additionally, the intelligence officials claimed that Al Qaeda “was left without ‘leadership talent’ and “strategic guidance’” after the U.S. killed Al Qaeda emir Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone strike at a Taliban safe house in Kabul in the summer of 2022, CNN reported.
The intelligence officials dismissed the UN Monitoring Team’s report as “an outlier within the UN system” and “‘wildly out of whack’ with intelligence collected by the US and its partners,” CNN noted.
However, the UN Monitoring Team’s report closely tracks with information on Al Qaeda’s historical and recent operations in Afghanistan that has been gathered by FDD’s Long War Journal.
A HISTORICAL NADIR?
The unnamed intelligence officials were incredibly dismissive of the Monitoring Team’s report, which was released in early June. According to the Monitoring Team, the Al Qaeda camps are located in six Afghan provinces: Helmand, Zabul, Badghis, Nangarhar, Nuristan, and Kunar. Additionally, the Monitoring Team noted that Al Qaeda has established “safe houses” in Farah, Helmand, Herat and Kabul, and opened a media operations center in Herat.
Despite the assertions of the U.S. intelligence officials Al Qaeda was known to have a significant presence in the provinces of Helmand, Farah, Zabul, Kunar, Nuristan, and Nangarhar prior to the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. There is no indication that Al Qaeda abandoned these provinces with post-U.S. withdrawal. As the Monitoring Team has noted and FDD’s Long War Journal has independently assessed, the Taliban-Al Qaeda relationship remains strong. 
|
