by SAM FADDIS
– Joe Biden
Biden has done a lot of horrifying things since he sat down in the White House. This may be the worst. He is lying. He is covering for the enemy. He is providing a mortal enemy with the time and space it needs to plan mass murder. He might as well be in some alternate universe.
Meanwhile, in the real world, in the nightmare that is now Afghanistan very evil men are already hard at work on the next 9/11.
President Biden’s comments come after an independent United Nations report found that the Taliban are providing Al Qaida monthly “welfare payments” that are used to pay fighters, the Taliban’s Ministry of Defense now uses al Qaeda training manuals and receives instruction from al Qaeda, and that al Qaeda has established training camps across Afghanistan, one of which is specifically used to train suicide bombers. Per the UN report, the “relationship between the Taliban and al-Qaida remained close and symbiotic with al-Qaida viewing Taliban-administered Afghanistan as a safe haven.”
“It is completely divorced from reality for President Biden to claim that al Qaeda is no longer operating in Afghanistan or that the Taliban has somehow become our national security partner in the region,” said House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul. “Al Zawahiri, the leader of al Qaeda, was discovered living comfortably in Kabul in a home owned by a senior Taliban official, and when the U.S. neutralized the al Qaeda leader, the Taliban disavowed the strike. The UN and top U.S. generals regularly report al Qaeda’s growing capabilities, which not only go unchecked by the Taliban, but are aided by the Taliban through funding and security cooperation. President Biden’s words can only be interpreted as an attempt to whitewash the Taliban and al Qaeda’s longstanding ties, and may even be an attempt to get America on the path of recognizing the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan. That is something I will do everything in my power to oppose.”
“The number of all Al-Qaida fighters in the country is estimated to be 400, reaching 2,000 with family members and supporters included, 9 operating in the south (Helmand, Zabul and Kandahar Provinces), centre (Ghazni, Kabul and Parwan) and east (Kunar, Nangarhar and Nuristan). All Al-Qaida locations were attempting to reduce their visibility and minimize communications. The group has established new training camps in Badghis, Helmand, Nangarhar, Nuristan and Zabul, with safe houses in Farah, Helmand, Herat and Kabul. One Member State reported the arrival of 20 to 25 Arab foreign fighters to Kunar and Nuristan, where the location of a camp was stated to be specifically for the training of suicide bombers, accompanied by a new Al-Qaida media apparatus being established in Herat.”
As noted above there are now at least five Al Qaida training camps in Afghanistan. This is in addition to a broad support structure dedicated to moving operatives in and out of country and providing them with the weapons and munitions they need.
Our ability to monitor what is happening on the ground in any meaningful way is virtually nil. We are back to the days of taking pictures from space of training facilities and wishing we had some idea what was going to happen next.
Al Qaida is also increasingly intertwined with the Taliban. The current Taliban governor of Nuristan Province for example is Hafiz Muhammad Agha Hakeem, an Al Qaida leader. There are several other Al Qaida officials serving in similar positions in the Taliban government that Joe claims is helping us fight terrorism.
Al Qaida in fact is not simply preparing to launch attacks, it is already doing so. A steady stream of reporting from multiple sources indicates that Al Qaida is directly involved in training and equipping Pakistani Taliban forces. Those forces are staging attacks on Pakistani security forces daily. The express purpose of these attacks per the Pakistani Taliban is to topple the government in Islamabad and replace it with an Islamic emirate on the model of the one that now exists in Kabul.
Pakistan is a nuclear-armed state. It possesses roughly 200 operational nuclear warheads and the means to deliver them. Its economy is in shambles and its military is riddled with Islamists who might well make common cause with the Taliban and Al Qaida. Our leaving Afghanistan ended nothing. It just allowed the jihadists to move on to their next target.
Meanwhile, Al Qaida operates affiliates in many nations other than Afghanistan. Those affiliates are scattered across the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. They are growing in strength, and they all have the same ultimate goal, to strike the far enemy.
That is us.
For many years prior to 9/11, I worked counterterrorism. I proposed operations against the growing Al Qaida threat many times. Most were shut down. Others that somehow managed to get off the ground were hamstrung and also ultimately shut down.
Well, at least our southern border is iron-clad secured and no terrorists can get through there.