U.S. Commander: ISIS in Afghanistan 6 Months Away From Foreign Attack Capability

usnews – The Islamic State group branch in Afghanistan will be able to conduct terrorist attacks in Europe and Asia within six months, the top U.S. officer for operations in the region told Congress on Thursday.“They can do an external operation against U.S. or Western interests abroad in under six months with little to no warning,” Army Gen. Michael Kurilla, the head of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday.The general later specified that the group known as ISIS-Khorasan or ISIS-K could potentially conduct attacks in Asia or in Europe. It will have greater difficulty attacking the U.S. homeland directly, he said in response to questions.U.S. intelligence offered a similar assessment of ISIS-K’s ability to attack the U.S. in October 2021.

The potential threat posed by the group, whose brutal acts became more prolific in the final years of the U.S. involvement in the conflict, has become a renewed matter of attention as lawmakers scrutinize the extent the U.S. can still conduct counter-terror operations in Afghanistan after fully withdrawing from it.Since its rise, leaders of ISIS-K have focused their attacks on Western powers as well as fellow Muslims, including the Taliban leadership that currently rules Afghanistan.Critics of President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan – resulting in catastrophic evacuation in the summer of 2021 – have centered on continued White House assertions that it can conduct “over the horizon” attacks to defend against terrorist threats from Afghanistan despite not having an enduring troop presence on the ground.

Kurilla confirmed Thursday that the U.S. has only conducted one such strike since the withdrawal – a matter of public knowledge. But he appeared to surprise some on the dais with vague details about two other “non-kinetic” operations involving several global U.S. military headquarters that he said disrupted terrorist operations in Afghanistan. He said he would provide further details in a closed-door classified session after the committee’s open hearing on Thursday.ISIS-K appeared to gain momentum in its attacks last year and early 2023 following successful strikes on the Afghan foreign ministry building, the Pakistani embassy and a hotel housing several visitors from China. Beijing has previously criticized its intermittent ally in the Taliban government and its Pakistani backers for not doing more to protect its people and investments there.

The non-profit Counter-Extremism Project noted in a March analysis note that the number of attacks carried out by ISIS-K appeared to drop earlier in the year, as did its propaganda initiatives to build international cache for its organization. The project attributes the drop to weather conditions as Afghanistan experiences the coldest winter in 15 years, as well as some successful Taliban operations to target and contain the group.