He warns that Afghanistan CIA Deputy Director David Cohen said on Wednesday that the withdrawal of US troops would be a launching pad for terrorist attacks around the world once it turns out to be a mistake.
“The dire predictions have not come true,” he told a national security conference in Rockville, Maryland.
Cohen was citing warnings from some lawmakers and analysts President Joe BidenThe decision of the United States to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan in 2021 opened the door to the revival of terrorist groups in this country.
Republican lawmakers have criticized the Biden administration for its handling of the U.S. withdrawal and argued that Afghanistan is once again a safe haven for terrorist groups. Including ISIS-K.
A United Nations report released in July said that foreign governments are increasingly concerned about terrorist threats from Afghanistan, including ISIS-K.. ISIS-K relies on networks of “facilitators” in Afghanistan and Turkey that can transport operatives from Central Asia and Afghanistan to Europe “to conduct overseas operations,” the report said.
According to the UN report, ISIS-K has stepped up its financial, logistical and recruitment efforts and is believed to have provided fighters, funds and training for large-scale attacks in Russia and Iran earlier this year.
Cohen said Washington has shifted its national security priorities in recent years to focus on China and Russia, but said counterterrorism remains a mission the nation’s intelligence agencies cannot afford to fail.
“We’re continuing to invest in it, we’re continuing to put resources into it,” Cohen said.
He said that Iwhip State terrorist groupIt remains the biggest terrorist threat, including its affiliate in Afghanistan, known as ISIS-K.
According to him, the terrorist threat landscape is more diffuse and in some ways more complex than in the years after the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.
But he added that “some progress is worth considering” in the US’s anti-terrorist fight.
Cohen cited the 2022 US operation that killed al-Qaeda chief Ayman Zawahiri in a safe house in Kabul as an example of counter-terrorism success.
He also said that The CIA contacted the TalibanThe group that currently manages Afghanistan, reminding the group of its commitment to ensure that this country does not become a stage for terrorist attacks abroad.
“We’ve been in contact with them in a variety of ways throughout this time as they’ve made efforts to fight both al-Qaeda and ISIS-K,” Cohen said.
“And so it’s not a ‘mission accomplished’ kind of thing. But it should be noted that the dire predictions in Afghanistan today have not come true.”
The Vienna plan failed
Cohen said the CIA and other intelligence agencies were instrumental in helping Austrian authorities foil a potentially deadly plot by ISIS-linked operatives to attack a planned Taylor Swift concert in Vienna earlier this month.
The suspects “intended to kill a large number of people,” he said.
“The Austrians were able to make these arrests because our partners in the agency and the intelligence community tipped off what this ISIS-linked group was planning to do,” Cohen said.
As a result, hundreds of lives have been saved, he said, an example of what he called “successes” in counter-terrorism efforts that are sometimes overlooked.
“We make progress sometimes,” Cohen said.
Swift was scheduled to perform August 8-10 in Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium for around 170,000 fans. But the demonstrations were halted after Austrian police said a terrorist attack was planned on August 7 he targeted the concerts.