Daily Times
April 20, 2021
On April 14, US President Joe Biden announced that all his country’s troops would leave Afghanistan by September 11, 2021; and not by May 1, as pledged by the former White House administration. Indeed, Biden claimed that the US had achieved its objectives in Afghanistan, saying: “We went to Afghanistan in 2001 to root out Al Qaeda, to prevent future terrorist attacks against the United States planned from Afghanistan. We accomplished that objective”.
Yet ground realities in Afghanistan contradict Biden’s talk of success. After all, there are reports of a Taliban-Al Qaeda nexus. Back in October of last year, Edmund Fitton-Brown, co-ordinator of the UN’s Monitoring Team on the Islamic State, Al Qaeda and the Taliban, confirmed as much to the BBC, noting that Al Qaeda was “heavily embedded” within the Taliban in Afghanistan. In addition, that same month saw Afghan Special Forces kill top Al Qaeda chief Husam Abd al-Rauf (Abu Muhsin al-Masri) i