FBI director Christopher: Afghanistan will become a magnet for terrorism groups to plot and direct attacks
FBI Director Christopher A. Wray said Wednesday that the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan raises concerns that the country will become a magnet for terrorism groups to plot and direct attacks.
“We are, of course, concerned that there will be an opportunity for a safe haven to be re-created there, which is something we’ve seen in the past,” Wray said in testimony to the House Homeland Security Committee.
The hearing was called to discuss security risks to the United States around the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, but most of the discussion centered on lawmakers’ questions about migrants at the southern border, cyberattacks or the rising threat posed by domestic terrorism. Other witnesses included Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Christine Abizaid, director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
Wray mentioned that concern, as well as the possibility that the United States’ messy retreat “can serve as a catalyst of inspiration for terrorists” around the world.
U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan last month, nearly 20 years after undertaking a mission to destroy the al-Qaida organization that launched the 9/11 hijacking plot and to prevent that country from fostering any further attacks. Some U.S. national security officials worry that the absence of an American military presence there will allow al-Qaida or other groups such as Islamic State-Khorasan to strengthen and rebuild.
But most importantly, he said, the FBI is concerned that foreign terror groups “will have an opportunity to reconstitute, plot, inspire, in a space that’s much harder for us to collect intelligence and operate against than was the case previously.”
On Wednesday, Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met in Finland with his Russian counterpart, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, to discuss their countries’ differing views on the matter, according to a report by The Associated Press.
The Biden administration has said it can conduct surveillance and strikes in Afghanistan from “over the horizon” — a euphemism for military or covert bases in other countries outside the immediate region. But officials also concede that without a presence there, their ability to address threats is limited. U.S. security officials would like to strike more intelligence- or base-sharing agreements with neighboring countries such as Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan, a move Russia opposes.
In July, a senior Russian diplomat called any U.S. deployment of troops in countries around Afghanistan “unacceptable.”
