Commander who led Afghan exit says US is less safe NOW than when troops were in Afghanistan
The general who oversaw the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last year marked the anniversary of the last soldier leaving by warning that the U.S. is now less safe than when foreign troops were in the country.
Retired Gen. Frank McKenzie was the head of U.S. Central Command during the chaotic operation to bring home the last American troops last year.
In an interview to mark the anniversary of the last solder leaving on Tuesday, he said Al Qaeda and the Islamic State would use the absence to work on their ‘aspirations’ to attack the West.
‘We were in Afghanistan to prevent the development of violent extremist organisations that were flourishing there, particularly al Qaeda and ISIS, and I believe we have less capability now than we did before to monitor and suppress the development of those activities,’ he told the BBC.
‘So in that sense, yes, I believe we are less safe now than we were before.’
The month of August has brought a string of anniversaries.
August 15 marked the day the Taliban overran Kabul; August 26 was one year after a suicide bomber killed 13 U.S. service members and at least 170 Afghans; and the last U.S. soldier flew out of the country on August 30.
Former officials and regional experts have kept up a commentary warning that there has not been proper accountability for mistakes that were made or lessons learned.
Gen. Frank McKenzie has retired since overseeing the Afghanistan withdrawal and has given a string of interviews to mark the anniversary. In an interview broadcast on Tuesday, he said the U.S. was now less safe than it was when U.S. forces were in the country
The last U.S. troops were flown out of Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport just before midnight on August 30 of 2021, ending America’s 20-year war
McKenzie said he was pleased a drone strike killed Al Qaeda chief Ayman Al Zawahiri – but he pointed out that a single strike since the U.S. departed illustrated the difficulties of an ‘over-the-horizon counterterrorism capability’
And families of those killed in the suicide attack say claims that the withdrawal was a success have deepened their wounds.
For his part, McKenzie, who retired this year, said he had spent the past year reflecting on the war and its final months.
‘I think we’re seeing two things going on in Afghanistan. One is the deconstruction of public society by the Taliban that’s really returning to a mediaeval … a very, very harsh existence in Afghanistan,’ he said.
‘The other thing is that organisations like Al Qaeda and ISIS are going to be able to flourish, either through complicity of the Taliban, or through under-governance of areas outside of Kabul.
‘And I believe we’re on a track where they were going to grow and they were going to be able to proceed with their aspirations to conduct attacks against the West.’
Before the last troops left, President Joe Biden promised an ‘over-the-horizon’ counterterrorism capability that would be able to monitor and take out threats as they developed.
However, a botched drone strike that killed civilians last August was followed by almost a year without any demonstration that the U.S. could act against terrorists.
Then in July Al Qaeda chief Ayman Al Zawahiri was killed in a drone strike on a villa in Kabul.
It was seen as both a victory for the long-range counterterrorism effort and a worrying warning that senior terrorist figures felt safe in Taliban-controlled Kabul.
More than 120,000 people were flown out of Kabul airport during the airlift last year
President Joe Biden paid tribute on Friday to 13 American service members who died during the final days of the Kabul airlift when a suicide bomber detonated explosives packed with ball bearings amid the chaos of the city’s airport
‘I was pleased that that we got him. We’ve been looking for him for a long time,’ said McKenzie.
‘We’ve been out of Afghanistan a year that was one strike in a year. I’ve said publicly and in testimony that counterterrorism operations from over the horizon in Afghanistan would be very hard but not impossible.
‘I’d say a strike in a year probably meets the criteria of very hard but not impossible.
‘There are a lot of other targets there and a lot of other organisations that aspire to do us ill, and we’re going to have to continue to apply pressure and that’s going to be very difficult.’
Earlier this week, he said his advice had been to leave a small contingent of U.S. forces in Afghanistan to shore up a fragile government in Kabul.
Biden announced in April last year that he would bring home all remaining U.S. troops by September 11 of 2021 – the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that took American troops to Afghanistan in the first place.
His decision built on a Trump administration deal with the Taliban that American forces would leave.
But the withdrawal of foreign contractors and U.S. air support – on which the Afghan armed forces had come to rely – triggered a rapid Taliban advance.
Now a string of figures is warning that Al Qaeda and ISIS have the chance to grow under the Taliban.
McKenzie’s latest comments echo the view of Mike Pompeo, former secretary of state and CIA director.
The one-time CIA director told host John Catsimatidis: ‘We are more likely to be attacked like New York City was 20 some years ago, we’re more likely to be attacked from [Afghanistan] today than we were just one year ago,’ he told New York radio host John Catsimatidis on Sunday morning.
The Taliban marked the anniversary of their takeover of Kabul on August 15 this year
