Al-Qaida has been given an 'opportunity and they'll take advantage' after the US suddenly withdrew from Afghanistan, counter-terror experts have warned Joe Biden.
The President is under international pressure to extend his August 31 deadline of a total withdrawal from the country where thousands of desperate people trying to flee the Taliban are still mobbing Kabul airport.
He will join other G7 leaders on a virtual call later today for an emergency meeting on Afghanistan, many will surely press him on the deadline which Nato has begged Washington to extend to avert a humanitarian disaster.
The US faces a race against time with the Taliban warning that if it doesn't keep to its exit date there will be 'consequences.'
Washington pulled off its biggest haul of evacuations since the crisis started over the last 24 hours to early Monday morning, with 28 military jets rescuing around 10,400 people. Another 15 C-17 flights over the next 12 hours brought out another 6,660.
American troops also completed their first mission to rescue people outside the airport - something which their allies have been doing since they arrived but which Biden had refused to allow because he feared it might lead to an incident like Black Hawk Down, when US helicopters were shot down over Mogadishu in 1993.
The President will face calls from allies today who rely on the US to remain at the airport - but whether he agrees to extend the deadline or not, he has been emphatic: America is leaving Afghanistan.
That fact concerns national security experts who believe the country will once again become a cradle for al-Qaida, who the Taliban aided in the jihad which culminated in the 9/11 attacks.
'I think al-Qaida has an opportunity, and they're going to take advantage of that opportunity,' says Chris Costa, who was senior director for counterterrorism in the Trump administration. 'This is a galvanizing event for jihadists everywhere.'
Al-Qaida's ranks have been significantly diminished by 20 years of war in Afghanistan, and it's far from clear that the group has the capacity in the near future to carry out catastrophic attacks on America such as the 9/11 strikes, especially given how the U.S. has fortified itself in the past two decades with surveillance and other protective measures.
Crowds of people outside Kabul airport on Tuesday, some holding children, others holding papers (left) and another group standing inside a moat around the perimeter
Joe Biden has been warned by national security experts that Afghanistan will become a cradle for al-Qaida terrorists when the US withdraws fully
Crowds of people near the airport in Kabul on Sunday. People are desperately trying to escape the country on British and American planes before the end of August
But a June report from the U.N. Security Council said the group's senior leadership remains present inside Afghanistan, along with hundreds of armed operatives. It noted that the Taliban, who sheltered al-Qaida fighters before the September 11 attacks, 'remain close, based on friendship, a history of shared struggle, ideological sympathy and intermarriage.'
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby acknowledged Friday that al-Qaida remains a presence in Afghanistan, though quantifying it is hard because of a reduced intelligence-gathering capability in the country and 'because it's not like they carry identification cards and register somewhere.'
Even inside the country, al-Qaida and the Taliban represent only two of the urgent terrorism concerns, as evidenced by unease about the potential for Islamic State attacks against Americans in Afghanistan that over the weekend forced the U.S. military to develop new ways to get evacuees
