A little over a week after the withdrawal debacle in Afghanistan began, U.S. officials now warn that the Islamic State (ISIS) poses a threat to American troops in the region.
“The U.S. warned that Islamic State poses a threat to Americans in Afghanistan as the Biden administration seeks to evacuate thousands of U.S. citizens and Afghan allies,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
Speaking with CNN on Sunday, Jake Sullivan, national security adviser to President Joe Biden, warned the threat of ISIS should be taken seriously.
US National Security advisor Jake Sullivan looks on during the daily press briefing on the situation in Afghanistan at the White House in Washington, DC on August 17, 2021. – US President Joe Biden has not spoken with any of his fellow world leaders since Kabul fell to the Taliban, the White House said on Tuesday. “He has not yet spoken with any other world leaders,” Sullivan told reporters. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP) (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
“It is something that we are placing paramount priority on stopping or disrupting, and we will do everything that we can for as long as we are on the ground to keep that from happening. But we are taking it absolutely deadly seriously,” he said.
Sullivan added that the threat from ISIS is “real, it is acute, it is persistent, and it is something that we are focused on with every tool in our arsenal.”
“Our commanders on the ground have a wide variety of capabilities that they are using to defend the airfield against a potential terrorist attack. We are working hard with our intelligence community to try to isolate and determine where an attack might come from,” he added.
Sullivan emphasized that President Biden has been discussing with his advisers every day about the possibility of sending more troops to keep the situation under control. “Every single day, the president asks his military commanders … whether they need additional resources, additional troops. So far, the answer has been no. But he will ask again today,” he said.
Taliban fighters stand guard in front of the Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Aug. 16, 2021. Thousands of people packed into the Afghan capital’s airport on Monday, rushing the tarmac and pushing onto planes in desperate attempts to flee the country after the Taliban overthrew the Western-backed government. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
Sullivan also rejected the idea that al-Qaeda now poses a threat to the U.S. homeland now that the Taliban controls Afghanistan. “Right now, our intelligence community does not believe that al Qaeda in Afghanistan represents a threat to the United States homeland,” he said.
Along with al-Qaeda, ISIS and the Taliban have sometimes cooperated and fought each other for control in certain territories of Afghanistan.
In this June 16, 2014 file photo, demonstrators chant pro-Islamic State group, slogans as they carry the group’s flags in front of the provincial government headquarters in Mosul, 225 miles (360 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad. ISIS placed eighth on Google’s list of 2014’s fastest-rising global search requests, the company said Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2014. (AP Photo, File)
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Islamic State is among several terrorist groups present in Afghanistan, each with a different relationship with the Taliban. The Taliban had harbored al Qaeda prior to that group’s terrorist attacks on the U.S. in 2001, and reports have surfaced that the Taliban have freed al Qaeda fighters from prisons as they gained control of the country this month.
ISIS and the Taliban have sometimes fought over control of territory in Afghanistan. The Taliban, after taking over Kabul, executed the former head of Islamic State in South Asia, who had been in a government prison.
According to the Guardian, the United States has warned Americans in the country to avoid Kabul airport due to threats from ISIS, and one anonymous senior official told the Associated Press that “ISIS threats against Americans were forcing the military to develop new ways to get evacuees to the Kabul airport.”
TOPSHOT – Afghans gather on a roadside near the military part of the airport in Kabul on August 20, 2021, hoping to flee from the country after the Taliban’s military takeover of Afghanistan. (Photo by Wakil KOHSAR / AFP) (Photo by WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images)
“The official said small groups of Americans and possibly other civilians would be given specific instructions, including movement to transit points where they can be gathered up by the military,” noted the Guardian. “Officials declined to provide more specifics about the ISIS threat but described it as significant.”
During a pentagon briefing on Saturday, spokesman John Kirby said the United States is in “regular communication” with the Taliban to keep Americans in Afghanistan safe.
“What I would tell you is that we continue to have regular communication with Taliban leaders … particularly those that are manning or in charge of the checkpoints around the airport, that communication and deconfliction occurs,” said Kirby.
“[There is] a lot less visibility farther out into the city, and that’s possibly where there might be threats of kidnapping or … what really we’re trying to avoid here. There’s a lot, there’s a whole panoply of security concerns that we have,” he added.