On Wednesday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” White House National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby stated that the Taliban killing the ISIS-K mastermind of the 2021 Kabul airport attack doesn’t show the limits of American capabilities in Afghanistan, but “validates the President’s decision to leave Afghanistan altogether.”
Co-host Kate Bolduan asked, “John, after the Abbey Gate attack, everyone will remember President Biden’s speech that night, and he vowed retribution. In it, he said we will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay. The fact that the Taliban is who killed this leader, does this speak to the limits of U.S. capabilities in Afghanistan after the withdrawal?”
Kirby answered, “No, actually, Kate, I think it validates the President’s decision to leave Afghanistan altogether. You don’t need to have a big presence on the ground, boots on the ground to go after terrorist threats, whether they’re in Afghanistan or elsewhere. Now, look, the Taliban killed this individual. I think it’s a good thing that he’s gone. I think it’s a great thing that he’s no longer walking the earth and no longer can plan attacks and conduct attacks against anyone, let alone American interests. But look, I think it’s also important to remember, we killed al-Zawahiri while he was sitting on a balcony in Kabul, Afghanistan using over-the-horizon capabilities. And we’ve taken out other ISIS leaders in Somalia and in Syria, again, using over the horizon. What the President said also that day was that we’re going to make sure we can continue to sharpen and improve our abilities to go after these guys in an over-the-horizon, low-footprint way, and we’ve actually proven that case time and time again.”
Bolduan then asked, “With this, does President Biden, does the Biden administration trust the Taliban any more today than they did previous to this?”
Kirby answered, “No, ma’am. This is not about trust, not at all. And we didn’t — we weren’t involved in this. We didn’t partner with them on this. They have said, they said in their agreement –which they signed under the Trump administration — that they were not going to allow Afghanistan to become a safe haven for al Qaeda or terrorist networks. We’re going to hold them to that commitment. We want to see them meet that commitment. But this is not about trust, not the way that the Taliban is treating its own people, women and girls, they are not meeting all of their commitments to the international community and we’re going to continue to urge them to do that.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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