Afghan terror threat re-emerges

Afghan women and children wait to receive food aid on the outskirts of Jalalabad. Picture: AFP

With the benefit of hindsight, Joe Biden’s abandonment of Afghanistan two years ago may appear to be less than the abject surrender to forces of Islamist extremism it was judged to be at the time. But the idea it was a success should be resisted.

The US and its allies are no longer bogged down in what was America’s longest war, and that is important. For that, as Washington correspondent Adam Creighton wrote on Monday, Mr Biden deserves credit. Unlike presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, Creighton wrote, Mr Biden had the courage to end the mess. Laudable as that may be, it does not exonerate him from responsibility for the chaos that surrounded the withdrawal in August 2021. Neither does it excuse the responsibility Mr Biden and preceding US administrations bear for the abandonment of Afghans to the Taliban.

A new report to the UN Security Council by the UN’s Office of Counter-Terrorism has outlined one of those consequences: two years after the US abandoned $US7bn worth of military equipment, 20 Islamist terrorist groups enjoy free rein. Islamic State, al-Qa’ida and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan are using lethal “NATO-calibre weapons”. ISIS has created a committee to explore advances in weaponry such as improvised explosive devices and increased payloads for drones. What that portends for the fight against terror remains to be seen.

Afghanistan’s women are suffering. Taliban leaders have reimposed most of the medieval rules they ruthlessly enforced previously. Girls were banned from schools on the day classes restarted. Women are prohibited from higher education. A men-only rule bars women and girls from parks, gyms and public baths. They may not work for non-government organisations trying to provide food and clean water. They cannot go out without permission from a male. The wearing of headscarfs and hijabs is being ruthlessly enforced. The Taliban has reinstituted public executions and floggings for so-called crimes such as adultery and “escaping from home”. Women are among those being lashed. China and Russia have embraced the country for their own geopolitical and economic advantage.

None of this is a success for the West. With terrorist groups increasingly using sophisticated weaponry from the armoury abandoned by the US as it raced for the exits, global security will be under threat.