Another 9/11 will happen if Afghanistan is abandoned (negotiator)

“We have said it very clearly – that the international community, if it repeats the same mistake it made in the past, that war and … terrorism will once again reach their doors, will reach their cities again,” said said Noor, who was part of the Afghan delegation to Qatar that negotiated with the Taliban in July 2019.

“And again, they will… witness another 9/11,” he told CNBC’s “Capital Connection” Tuesday. “It is very important at this point to be very careful about what to do with the Taliban.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said a new diplomatic mission has started in Afghanistan now that military operations have ended.

“We will remain vigilant in monitoring threats ourselves and will maintain strong counterterrorism capabilities in the region to neutralize these threats if necessary – as we have demonstrated in recent days by hitting ISIS facilitators and even threats in the region. Afghanistan, and as we do in places around the world where we don’t have military forces on the ground, ”Blinken said.

Afghanistan is now almost entirely controlled by the Taliban, and the militant Islamist group “has never severed its ties with international terrorist groups” such as al-Qaeda, Noor said, pointing to a video showing a close relative. ally of Osama bin Laden. in Afghanistan.

Bin Laden founded al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization that was behind the attacks of September 11, 2001, when nearly 3,000 people were killed after hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

“This is only the tip of the iceberg of what will happen in the future,” said Noor, the son of the former governor of Balkh province in northern Afghanistan, Atta Mohammad. Noor.

A United Nations report this year came to a similar conclusion – that the Taliban and al-Qaeda “remain closely aligned and show no indication of severing ties.” The Taliban had previously refuted these claims.

“One of the big myths” in the United States and in political circles is that the Taliban and al-Qaeda are not integrated with each other, said Thomas Joscelyn, senior researcher at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

“They are as close allies today as they were in the 1990s, perhaps even closer in some ways,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Tuesday. “It really is a victory for al-Qaeda, in addition to the Taliban.”

Afghanistan is a “failed state” and will soon become the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Joscelyn said, referring to the Taliban’s official name for Afghanistan.

Noor, who was part of the former Afghan government’s peace negotiation team, said the group wants to negotiate with the Taliban to form an “inclusive government” – where diverse ethnicities are represented.

“Obviously, I have doubts about the negotiations, but we do not want to force war in the country, which is why we are preparing to negotiate,” he said without giving details.

He said it was not about power sharing, but about values, elections, freedom of speech, freedom of the media and “many other rights that my people have acquired” during over the past 20 years.

If the Taliban make the same mistakes as in the past, “I can assure you that resistance will take shape,” he said.

“My people will stand up. We will all return to Afghanistan and resist the Taliban,” he told CNBC from Dubai.