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But the sudden collapse of the Afghan government prompted US intelligence agencies to move some resources to the region from elsewhere, according to two sources familiar with the matter, in an attempt to try to compensate for capabilities they see as essential for detect conspiracies that could affect the United States at home or their interests abroad.
One example is the movement of more enduring predatory drones into the area in an attempt to mitigate the loss of bases in the country, one of the sources said.
Adding to the complexity, some anti-government and far-right groups in the United States could also draw inspiration from the Taliban victory, officials say.
“We are assessing the long-term impact on decisions made about repositioning troops,” a US law enforcement official told CNN.
In the short term, ISIS and al-Qaeda are likely to focus on local and regional activities. Both groups have subsidiaries in Africa, Yemen and Syria.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Sunday that ISIS’s threat in Afghanistan was “acute” and should be taken seriously as the administration rushes to evacuate thousands of U.S. citizens and Afghan allies in Kabul.
“The threat… is something we are focusing on with all the tools in our arsenal,” Sullivan told CNN’s Brianna Keilar on “State of the Union”.
On Monday, Sullivan said Biden “has been clear from his point of view that US terrorist capabilities have evolved to the point where we can suppress this terrorist threat without keeping thousands or tens of thousands of troops on the ground in a country.” .
In the longer term, the concern is that Afghanistan could eventually become a safe haven from which terrorists can recruit, train, launch attacks and also maintain media operations to inspire attacks in the United States.
The US law enforcement official said this could provide an opportunity for extremist groups to “engage more broadly to try to inspire attacks, not necessarily manage them, but inspire them through their online activities.” .
Relations between the Taliban and a number of Al Qaeda figures run deep and stretch back many years, a former Department of Homeland Security official who worked in the fight against terrorism told CNN.
“Most of us assume that there will only be the lightest and thinnest leashes that the Taliban will want or be able to put on al Qaeda,” the former official said.
The chaotic nature of the US withdrawal “will clearly embolden violent extremists around the world,” the former official added.
Watch for signs of recruitment
Over the next few months, U.S. intelligence officials will watch for signs of recruitment by al-Qaeda and other groups that are used to using Afghanistan and areas neighboring Pakistan as a base for attacks outside of. the region, including the United States, Europe and India.
“As we approach 9/11, so they can reclaim Afghanistan, think about what that does to recruiting,” said a former US counterterrorism official.
The National Counterterrorism Center noted in a recent report released in recent days that terrorist groups from Syria to Pakistan have publicly celebrated the United States’ defeat in Afghanistan.
Of particular concern are the hundreds of prisoners released by the Taliban in recent days across Afghanistan.
Michael Sherwin, a former Justice Department prosecutor who worked alongside Afghan prosecutors and judges at the country’s national security court, said the release of prisoners represents a surge of “hard-core terrorists” in the ranks of Al Qaeda and other groups.
Sherwin recalled that even during the trials, some defendants explicitly threatened to kill Americans and their allies.
“The magnitude of this impact will not be fully realized for years to come,” said Sherwin, who also served as the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia in the final months of the Trump administration.
Since announcing the US withdrawal earlier this year, US intelligence officials have acknowledged that senior al Qaeda leaders who have fled to other countries may return to Afghanistan, according to a source familiar with internal discussions at the ‘era.
Many of those leaders are said to be part of the group’s command and control structure, the source added.
Relocation problems
In recent years, the growth of domestic threats from white nationalists and other right-wing groups has prompted US law enforcement to divert resources from international terrorist threats. But FBI officials said the international threat never went away.
A recent Department of Homeland Security terrorism bulletin, published days before Kabul fell to the Taliban, warned that the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks could act as a catalyst for violence in the United States.
“[F]Foreign terrorist organizations continue their efforts to inspire US-based individuals sensitive to violent extremist influences, ”the newsletter said, noting the recent publication of the first English-language copy of Al-Qaeda’s Inspire magazine in addition to four years.
For American officials, the immediate problem is how to manage the situation on the ground and ensure that those transferred from Afghanistan to the United States are fully vetted and vetted – systems and processes that have been improved over time. years with Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Intelligence Community.
“Anytime something happens in a pressure cooker, you will be pressured to speed up processes that are sometimes deliberate for a reason, because you may be missing something,” a former homeland security official told CNN.
Impact on domestic extremists
The possible push given to non-Islamist domestic extremists is also worrying. The reaction of white supremacist and anti-government online forums to the Taliban takeover has been “a bit surprising,” the US law enforcement official said.
“There are important discussions,” in which people express their support for what the Taliban has done and see it as an example of what anti-government extremists should do in the United States, the US official said. law enforcement.
Some of the accounts center on “the Taliban did it right” and that this should be a “lesson learned” about how we should operate in the United States, the US law enforcement official said. laws.
“This worries us a bit,” because it suggests an escalation of violence, the official added. For example, there have been references to the fact that only 80,000 Taliban were able to defeat an Afghan army of several hundred thousand backed by the United States, the official said.
There is a mix of narratives surfacing online, including discussions describing the withdrawal from Afghanistan as how the US government, and in particular the Democrats, are undoing all the work that has been done by the Americans who served in Afghanistan.
Amid anti-immigrant sentiment, DHS officials are also discussing whether Afghans themselves will be targeted once they land in the United States and are resettled here.
“Will they be the potential target? Will the Afghans themselves become targets? the official said, noting a concern.
CNN’s Zachary Cohen contributed to this report.
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