Kabul: America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and after the withdrawal of Taliban regime, the West is now grappling with a resurgent terrorist threat.
Kyle Orton, a British security analyst with a focus on Middle East geopolitics and Islamic terrorism, said in a blog that Afghanistan is now a devastated land that is enduring the worst combination of political terror and disorder, which has left millions of people dead. forced to become a refugee. challenges to international stability
ten months from nato Leaving Afghanistan to the jihadists of Pakistan – a unified coalition of the Taliban and al-Qaeda – the result has been as disappointing as could have been predicted: a horrific combination of brutal Islamic rule and anarchy prevails, as the economy collapses. and different groups challenge them. ,
The crisis in Afghanistan is not limited to Afghanistan, there is a refugee wave brewing, and there is a clear terrorism threat, both because the perpetrators of 9/11 are once again controlling the state from which they launched it and their The most powerful challenge is another international jihadist. Group, Khorasan Province of Islamic State (ISKP,
The media may have moved on to a large extent, but the situation in Afghanistan is one that will require serious attention from Western countries – for our own sake – for the foreseeable future.
Orton questioned in his blog whether Afghanistan would receive this attention, and if it does, how much and how well Western governments have knowledge of Afghanistan’s internal dynamics?
The ISKP, which ruthlessly hates Taliban-Qaeda forces, is a more pressing concern. The ISKP was able to engage in several terrorist operations around the world when NATO was in Afghanistan and putting the group under severe pressure.
During the Taliban takeover, as could be anticipated, prisons were broken into and thousands of ISKP jihadists were freed. Its effect was seen rapidly in Afghanistan. Unsurprisingly, the Taliban have been unable to rein in the ISKP.
So, if we can see a broader profile of developments in Afghanistan from August 2021 onwards, what kind of visibility does Western intelligence services have on a more nuanced level?
That was the question Ruel Marc Gerecht, a former Central Intelligence officer agency (CIA) Operations Officer, recently taken to the Hoover Institution.
Gerecht began by noting that when Americans are “unexpectedly traumatized abroad, the discussion inevitably begins about the inadequacy of US intelligence collection and analysis”.
It is not meant to address the deep structural problems with the CIA, in particular three: analysis, politics, and practice.
First, the analytic problem – which is also somewhat political – is phrased this way by Gerech: “Langley has a way of re-framing establishment biases with confidence in both analysis and operation”.
Second, the political problem is the agency’s overprotective exposure. As Gerecht puts it, “it is far better that case officers lose their lives (for infiltrating jihadist organizations) than American citizens die hundreds, or thousands, of years later”.
Another complication: When America is not directly present in the theatre, it becomes “more dependent on foreign intelligence and security services, who always have their axes to grind”, as Gerech writes.
“Their enemies cannot be ours”. Which is the third problem. The CIA has become heavily dependent on liaison relationships with security services in the Greater Middle East.
CIA officers under official cover, who are limited to unilateral uncontested embassies, have no easy way of evaluating information provided that, even if given in good faith, may be inaccurate. He is only in friendly countries; As mentioned above, with “hard” goals the situation is much worse.
In short, Gerecht says, “without the soldiers and case officers on the ground [in Afghanistan]The United States is probably going blind.”
The Taliban-Qaeda forces that control much of the country are an enduring threat to Western states, and the main challenge to this de facto regime, the ISKP, is a still more steadfast threat, given its ability to launch international terrorism. Capacity is developing even more rapidly. ,
The uncertainties surrounding it stem from the collapse of the US and allied intelligence networks – to the extent they ever existed – when the US helped jihadists push the Afghan government to its grave. For various operational and political reasons, it is unlikely that Western intelligence will gain any serious visibility into the Talibanized Afghanistan.
Kyle Orton, a British security analyst with a focus on Middle East geopolitics and Islamic terrorism, said in a blog that Afghanistan is now a devastated land that is enduring the worst combination of political terror and disorder, which has left millions of people dead. forced to become a refugee. challenges to international stability
ten months from nato Leaving Afghanistan to the jihadists of Pakistan – a unified coalition of the Taliban and al-Qaeda – the result has been as disappointing as could have been predicted: a horrific combination of brutal Islamic rule and anarchy prevails, as the economy collapses. and different groups challenge them. ,
The crisis in Afghanistan is not limited to Afghanistan, there is a refugee wave brewing, and there is a clear terrorism threat, both because the perpetrators of 9/11 are once again controlling the state from which they launched it and their The most powerful challenge is another international jihadist. Group, Khorasan Province of Islamic State (ISKP,
The media may have moved on to a large extent, but the situation in Afghanistan is one that will require serious attention from Western countries – for our own sake – for the foreseeable future.
Orton questioned in his blog whether Afghanistan would receive this attention, and if it does, how much and how well Western governments have knowledge of Afghanistan’s internal dynamics?
The ISKP, which ruthlessly hates Taliban-Qaeda forces, is a more pressing concern. The ISKP was able to engage in several terrorist operations around the world when NATO was in Afghanistan and putting the group under severe pressure.
During the Taliban takeover, as could be anticipated, prisons were broken into and thousands of ISKP jihadists were freed. Its effect was seen rapidly in Afghanistan. Unsurprisingly, the Taliban have been unable to rein in the ISKP.
So, if we can see a broader profile of developments in Afghanistan from August 2021 onwards, what kind of visibility does Western intelligence services have on a more nuanced level?
That was the question Ruel Marc Gerecht, a former Central Intelligence officer agency (CIA) Operations Officer, recently taken to the Hoover Institution.
Gerecht began by noting that when Americans are “unexpectedly traumatized abroad, the discussion inevitably begins about the inadequacy of US intelligence collection and analysis”.
It is not meant to address the deep structural problems with the CIA, in particular three: analysis, politics, and practice.
First, the analytic problem – which is also somewhat political – is phrased this way by Gerech: “Langley has a way of re-framing establishment biases with confidence in both analysis and operation”.
Second, the political problem is the agency’s overprotective exposure. As Gerecht puts it, “it is far better that case officers lose their lives (for infiltrating jihadist organizations) than American citizens die hundreds, or thousands, of years later”.
Another complication: When America is not directly present in the theatre, it becomes “more dependent on foreign intelligence and security services, who always have their axes to grind”, as Gerech writes.
“Their enemies cannot be ours”. Which is the third problem. The CIA has become heavily dependent on liaison relationships with security services in the Greater Middle East.
CIA officers under official cover, who are limited to unilateral uncontested embassies, have no easy way of evaluating information provided that, even if given in good faith, may be inaccurate. He is only in friendly countries; As mentioned above, with “hard” goals the situation is much worse.
In short, Gerecht says, “without the soldiers and case officers on the ground [in Afghanistan]The United States is probably going blind.”
The Taliban-Qaeda forces that control much of the country are an enduring threat to Western states, and the main challenge to this de facto regime, the ISKP, is a still more steadfast threat, given its ability to launch international terrorism. Capacity is developing even more rapidly. ,
The uncertainties surrounding it stem from the collapse of the US and allied intelligence networks – to the extent they ever existed – when the US helped jihadists push the Afghan government to its grave. For various operational and political reasons, it is unlikely that Western intelligence will gain any serious visibility into the Talibanized Afghanistan.