A day after the Taliban swept into Afghanistan's capital and overtook the government, many in the United States are wondering what that could mean for terrorism here at home.
Could the U.S. now be facing a rise in threats from a Taliban-run Afghanistan?
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Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told senators on a briefing call Sunday that U.S. officials are planning to alter their earlier assessments of how soon terrorist groups, like al-Qaeda, could reform in Afghanistan, a person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press.
Officials previously said it could take less than two years from the U.S. military's withdrawal for an extremist group to regenerate in Afghanistan and pose a threat. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he would put the risk level at "medium."
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However, those same officials are stunned at the speed in which the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban took over. Based on the evolving situation, officials now believe terror groups like al-Qaida may be able to grow much faster than expected, according to the AP report. U.S. intelligence agencies are working on forming a new timeline based on the evolving threats.
U.S. officials have said they plan to keep terrorist threats in check using forces based outside of Afghanistan that could carry out strikes in the country if needed, The Hill reported. Exactly how those strikes could be carried out, however, has not been revealed.
The Taliban's resurgence comes nearly 20 years after U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan following the al-Qaida backed attacks on September 11.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday that the country fell faster than the Biden administration expected. The ensuing chaos at the capital's airport with hordes of Afghans attempting to flee the country left seven people dead.
President Biden is expected to address the nation at 3:45 p.m. ET in his first public remarks on the Afghanistan situation in nearly a week.
Biden is the fourth U.S. president to confront challenges in Afghanistan, but he wasn't alone in planning to withdraw troops. The Trump administration last year negotiated terms with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021. After being elected, and bound to a deal made by the previous administration, Biden established a deadline of August 31 to have all troops back in the U.S. before the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
In a statement last month, Biden underscored his decision to withdraw from the country, saying the U.S. couldn't afford "to remain tethered to policies creating a response to a world as it was 20 years ago." At the time, he also insisted that a full Taliban takeover wouldn't happen.
"The likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely," Biden said on July 8.
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