Four years after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the threat posed by the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) has expanded beyond the region, now endangering both America and Europe. With the group actively recruiting and transferring fighters across borders, regional actors such as the Taliban, Iran, Tajikistan, and Pakistan have proven unable to curb its growth.
Abdul Haq al Turkistani currently operates from Kabul while directing his fighters in Syria. Haq’s presence in Afghanistan directly contradicts the Taliban’s claims that no foreign fighters operate or are based in the country and that Afghanistan isn’t a headquarters for terrorist groups.
The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan is operating training camps in four Afghan provinces, while Jamaat Ansarullah is operating camps in two more. Both groups continue to receive support from the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Two US citizens conducted separate attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas. Fifteen people were killed and dozens injured after a terrorist who declared membership in the Islamic State (IS) rammed a vehicle into a crowd on Bourbon Street. In a second incident being investigated as a possible terrorist attack, the driver was killed when he intentionally detonated a vehicle in front of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, injuring seven. Law enforcement officials are investigating if the attacks are connected but have found no links, thus far.
The Afghanistan Freedom Front (AFF), led by former Afghan Armed Forces Chief of General Staff Yasin Zia, is increasing the scope and lethality of its attacks. While the AFF is still in its infancy, Zia’s battlefield experience bodes well for its future.
Last week, the New York Times ran an article(?) called “Is Afghanistan’s Most-Wanted Militant Now Its Best Hope for Change?” (spoiler: no) and with the subtitle: “Sirajuddin Haqqani has tried to remake himself from blood-soaked jihadist to pragmatic Taliban statesman. Western diplomats are shocked — and enticed.” Yes, really.
Three years after the fall of Afghanistan, American politicians, policymakers, generals, and foreign policy “experts” can’t admit we lost the war. If they did, they would have to own their role in that failure.
Bill and Will Selber are joined by friend of the show Jerry Dunleavy. Jerry was the senior investigator for the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s investigation of the withdrawal from Afghanistan until he shared his letter of resignation on X earlier this week.
Why did Jerry resign? The answer requires revisiting how events leading up to the fall of Kabul and withdrawal from Afghanistan unfolded and played out — and the ever-expanding black hole of accountability.
The United Nations Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team reports that Al Qaeda is operating training camps in two new Afghan provinces: Kandahar and Takhar. The terrorist group now operates training camps in 12 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. Additionally, the Monitoring Team notes that Al Qaeda “still uses Afghanistan as a permissive haven under the Taliban.”
Sayf al-Adl, who is thought to be al Qaeda’s current leader, calls on supporters around the world to migrate to Afghanistan to gain training, experience, and knowledge before undertaking attacks against so-called “Zionist” and Western targets around the world.
The botched U.S. withdrawal in 2021 left behind a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan with al-Qaeda running training camps using abandoned American military equipment. Terrorism confined by the borders of Afghanistan until history repeats itself and it isn’t. Luckily, a major resistance movement is taking shape in Afghanistan and attempting to organize against the Taliban.
To learn about three groups that have emerged at the forefront Bill is joined by Will Selber, retired Middle East Foreign Area Officer with multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
They discuss who’s who in the resistance, which groups could be effective enough to take the fight to the Taliban (and which should sit it out), the work ahead and what they need for success — including unification.
Bill is joined again by our most special guest, Long War Journal/Generation Jihad OG and now senior fellow at Just Security, Thomas Joscelyn, to unpack another marathon, closed-door HFAC testimony. This time, the more than 200 pages of testimony they sifted through is from General Miller, the top U.S. general in Afghanistan during the botched withdrawal. They discuss testimony highlights, including when Gen. Miller throws shade at Bill and Tom but in the same breath admits that “they had it right.”
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.