Flying solo for this episode, Bill shares his thoughts on yesterday’s House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing with Generals Milley and McKenzie — including the questions they *should* have asked (but failed to).
Al Qaeda continues to build its network and infrastructure in Afghanistan after the fall of the Afghan government. Al Qaeda opened eight new training camps, five madrasas, a weapons depot and safe houses in Afghanistan that are used to facilitate the movement of its members to and from Iran.
Bill is joined by Stu Velasco and Zach Popp of The Boardwalk Podcast (also hosted by Kyle Reynolds who couldn’t make it, shoutout Kyle Reynolds) to discuss the trials and tribulations of their time in service to the U.S. during the long war.
Bill Roggio testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability, on the order to withdraw from Afghanistan and the impact on the Afghan government and security forces.
After nearly two decades of abysmal assessments from U.S. intelligence officials and policy makers on Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, the latest claims that the terror group is “at its historical nadir” should be taken with more than a grain of salt.
The Afghan people continue to suffer as the Taliban consolidates its power. Meanwhile, the Taliban’s support for Al Qaeda, the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, and a number of regional terror groups grows.
The Afghan Taliban continues to claim that there are no foreign terror groups operating inside their country, despite all evidence to the contrary. The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan has an extensive footprint in Afghanistan.
“I said Al Qaeda would not be there,” President Biden said about Afghanistan. “I said we’d get help from the Taliban… I was right.” Except Al Qaeda is indeed in Afghanistan and is receiving support from the Taliban.
Bill welcomes back to the show Generation Jihad regular Ambassador Edmund Fitton-Brown. Now a member of the Counter Extremism Project’s advisory board, Edmund previously served as the UK’s Ambassador to Yemen and later as the coordinator of the U.N. Security Council’s Sanctions Monitoring Team.
Edmund’s former team at the U.N. just released its latest report on Afghanistan which details (among other troubling issues) just how embedded al Qaeda is in Afghanistan’s Taliban government.
Bill and Edmund dissect the report’s findings.
The Taliban has made this false statement for decades, even prior to 9/11. After al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri was killed in Kabul, Taliban promises like this should be dismissed out of hand. Foreign terror groups continue to operate in Afghanistan to this day.
The U.S. captured al Qaeda key commander Abu Ikhlas al Masri in 2010. He was freed from Bagram prison after the Taliban takeover in 2021, and is thought to have reformed an Al Qaeda unit.
While Ayman al Zawahiri was the most prominentAl Qaeda leader killed in Afghanistan, dozens of top and middle tier Al Qaeda leaders, military commanders, trainers, facilitators and operatives have been killed or captured in the country since the beginning of 2010. This refutes the Taliban’s claim that foreign terrorists are not operating from the country.
All four terrorists, including the emir of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent and the deputy emir of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, are based in Afghanistan.
Friend of the show LTG (Ret.) H.R. McMaster joins Bill once again to discuss America’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan one year ago. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary — including an ongoing close relationship with al Qaeda, the United States designated the Taliban as “partners in peace” and handed the terrorist group keys to a state apparatus. Afghanistan fell and became the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. But it didn’t have to.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan leader Omar Khalid Khurasani, who is believed to have given sanctuary to Ayman al Zawahiri in the past, has called for global jihad, attacks on the US, and the establishment of the caliphate, and celebrated the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. He is reported to have been killed in a district in Afghansitan that has hosted an Al Qaeda training camp in the past.
In this episode, Bill flies solo and expands upon his recent article in FDD’s Long War Journal, “Ayman al Zawahiri is alive; Taliban and Al Qaeda ‘remain close,’ UN reports,” noting that reports today (August 1, 2022) of Zawahiri’s death inside of Afghanistan underscore the country’s role as a safe-haven for Al Qaeda.
The Taliban has made this false statement for decades, even prior to 9/11. And yet foreign terror groups continue to operate in Afghanistan to this day.
The presence of Abdul Haq al Turkistani, a veteran Al Qaeda leader, in Afghanistan contradicts the Taliban’s claims that there are no foreign fighters based in the country.
A Tajik commander in the Al Qaeda-linked Jamaat Ansarullah who was appointed to lead several districts in northern Afghanistan continues to celebrate the group’s ties to the Taliban.
The U.S. military continues to recycle stale estimates of Al Qaeda’s strength in Afghanistan, and elevate the Islamic State as a greater threat.
Host Bill Roggio briefs listeners on some of the latest news related to Afghanistan — including a few buried headlines you might have missed.
Two new videos from Ansaru, or al Qaeda’s franchise in Nigeria, demonstrate the group’s continued ideological affinity and connections to the global jihadist network.
TTP emir Noor Wali Mehsud said that his group “is a branch of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” while traveling throughout Pakistan’s northern areas.
Note: On September 30, 2021, Thomas Joscelyn testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee at a hearing titled, “To receive testimony on Afghanistan.” You can watch a recording of the hearing here, and you can read his full written testimony here. An excerpt, without footnotes, is below. Chairman Reed, Ranking Member Inhofe, members of the […]
The Islamic State claims to have attacked multiple Taliban personnel and vehicles across the city of Jalalabad on Sept. 18 and 19.
Hosts Tom and Bill continue to explore the failures in American leadership that led to the resurrection of the Taliban’s regime. Powered by RedCircle Take a look around the globe today and you’ll see jihadists fighting everywhere from West Africa to Southeast Asia. They aren’t the dominant force in all of those areas, or even […]
The mountainous fortress province of Panjshir fell only seven days after the Taliban launched its assault. The Taliban is now in complete control of the country, and is set to declare its Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
Al Qaeda’s central media arm, As Sahab, released a two-page statement praising the Taliban’s “historic victory” in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda fought alongside the Taliban to resurrect its Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
The video of Dr. Amin al Haq is evidence that Al Qaeda commanders now feel secure enough to appear publicly in a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
Hosts Tom Joscelyn and Bill Roggio discuss the need for accountability after 20 years of failures. Powered by RedCircle Take a look around the globe today and you’ll see jihadists fighting everywhere from West Africa to Southeast Asia. They aren’t the dominant force in all of those areas, or even most of them. But jihadism […]