As the 20th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks looms, a top US General warns that Joe Biden’s failures in Afghanistan will lead to that beleaguered country once again being fertile ground for terrorists and terrorist activities aimed at the United States.
In an exclusive television interview with Fox News’s Jennifer Griffin in Ramstein, Germany, General Mark Milley was asked if he thought America would be safer now that our forces have completely withdrawn from Afghanistan.
“My military estimate is…that the conditions are likely to develop of a civil war,” Milley said. “I don’t know if the Taliban is going to [be] able to consolidate power and establish governance.”
The general’s premonition was followed by his concern that the terrorist organizations could use the disorder in Afghanistan as an opportunity to find gains.
“I think there’s at least a very good probability of a broader civil war and that will then, in turn, lead to conditions that could, in fact, lead to a reconstitution of al-Qaeda or a growth of ISIS or other myriads of terrorist groups,” he told Fox News.
“You could see a resurgence of terrorism coming out of that general region within 12, 24, 36 months. And we’re going to monitor that,” he added.
The general articulated that he feared that maintaining US security and intelligence gathering in the region will be a more difficult task now that the US has no official presence inside Afghanistan.
“We’ll have to reestablish some human intelligence networks, etc.,” he said. “And then as opportunities present themselves, we’ll have to continue to conduct strike operations if there’s a threat to the United States.”
President Biden has said the US will continue to counter terrorism through “over horizon” capabilities by relying on military airstrikes instead of using ground-based operations.
Milley told Fox News, “it is possible to do it.” But added, “We’re going to have to maintain very, very intense levels of indicators and warnings and observation and ISR [Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance] over that entire region.