WASHINGTON – As President Biden signaled this week that he would let the May 1 deadline pass without withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan, some officials are using an intelligence assessment to argue for the extension of the military mission there.
American intelligence agencies have told the Biden government that if U.S. troops leave before a power-sharing agreement is reached between the Taliban and the Afghan government, the country could fall largely under Taliban control within two or three years after the withdrawal of forces. This could open the door for Al Qaeda to rebuild its strength within the country, according to American officials.
The confidential assessment, prepared for the first time last year for the Trump administration but not previously released, is the latest in a series of bleak predictions of Afghanistan’s future that intelligence analysts have made over the two-decade war.
But intelligence has landed in an altered political environment. While President Donald J. Trump pushed for the withdrawal of all forces even before the terms of the peace agreement called for it, Biden was more cautious, saying on Thursday that he does not see May 1 as a deadline he must meet. , although he also said that he “could not imagine” troops in the country next year.
The decision appears to be one of the most critical of Biden’s young presidency. He defended for a long time, as vice president, a minimal presence in Afghanistan, but it was said that he described in particular as an obsession the possibility of allowing the country to collapse.
Some senior Biden officials have expressed skepticism about any intelligence prediction of a resurgence of a weakened Al Qaeda or Islamic State. Taliban commanders continue to oppose Islamic State in Afghanistan, and Al Qaeda, which has little presence in the country, could regroup in several other lawless regions around the world.
The intelligence alert also left the question of whether Afghanistan could really prosper if American troops remained indefinitely unanswered. Their presence would likely prevent the collapse of the country’s own security forces and allow the government of Kabul, the Afghan capital, to retain control of its main cities, but the Taliban is yet to gradually expand its power in other parts of the country, including the limitation of women’s rights.
A Taliban spokesman said on Friday that the group was committed to last year’s peace deal “and wants the American side to remain firmly committed as well”. If troops are not withdrawn by May 1, the spokesman promised, the Taliban “will continue its jihad and its armed struggle against foreign forces.”
Biden government officials insisted that no final decision was made. However, with the deadline approaching, government officials are maneuvering to influence Biden and his top national security officials. Although Lloyd J. Austin III, the defense secretary, has not signaled the course of action he prefers, some Pentagon officials who believe that American forces should stay longer pointed to the intelligence assessment foreseeing a Taliban takeover in the country.
Some military commanders and government officials have argued that any date set for the withdrawal of the approximately 3,500 remaining US soldiers, whether May 1 or the end of the year, will end the mission. The only way to preserve the gains made in Afghanistan, they said, is to keep the small American presence there long enough to force a lasting deal between the Taliban and the Afghan government.
These officials used the intelligence assessment to say that a withdrawal this year will lead to the fall of the current government, a drastic erosion of women’s rights and the return of international terrorist groups. A rush to the exit, some officials said, will only drag the United States back to Afghanistan shortly after departure – as was the case in Iraq in 2014, three years after the Obama administration withdrew troops from the conflict.
The White House has held a series of meetings on Afghanistan and others are yet to come. On Thursday, the president said he was waiting for briefings from Austin, who recently met with Afghan officials, and from Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, who conferred this week with NATO allies, for his final advice on what should do.
For many Biden government officials, the issue that most clearly resonated is the threat that a Taliban takeover could pose for Afghan women. While some former intelligence officers predict that the Taliban will initially be careful not to fully reverse women’s rights – at least in big cities – if they take control of the entire country, it will be difficult to guarantee protections for women, such as education for women. girls and access to health care.
“Any agreement must preserve its gains if Afghanistan wants to guarantee continued political and financial support from the international community,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, told the Security Council this week. “We are not going to give up an inch at this point.”
The Biden government is making a final effort before May 1 to show progress in slow negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government in Doha, Qatar. The Taliban, according to American officials, are stalling.
The government is pressing both sides to attend a peace conference in Turkey to demonstrate progress. At the same time, American and Taliban negotiators continue to try to cement a 90-day reduction in violence, but so far both sides have hesitated to agree.
The secret intelligence assessment that the Taliban is largely taking control presumes that the Afghan government and the Taliban are unable to reach a political settlement and that a civil war would break out after the American exit.
Government officials warned that making any intelligence estimates is challenging, that predictions about the future are always inaccurate and that several factors influence the analysis.
For example, intelligence estimates depend on whether international funding for the Afghan government remains in place. The more money the United States and its allies provide to Afghanistan, the longer the government in Kabul must be able to maintain control of part of the country. But some officials said that history shows that, once American troops are withdrawn, Congress will act quickly to cut financial support to partner forces.
There is also a debate in Washington about the seriousness of the threat of return from terrorist groups. For the time being, the number of al Qaeda and Islamic State militants in Afghanistan is very small, said a senior US official.
Some lawmakers with access to confidential assessments said it was not certain that, if the United States withdrew, Al Qaeda could rebuild a base in Afghanistan to carry out terrorist attacks against the United States.
“What is this threat really going to be?” Congressman Adam Smith, Democrat of the State of Washington and chairman of the House’s Armed Services Committee, said this week during a virtual conference on Afghanistan. “It is not the 1990s, when Al Qaeda set up camps and they had the Taliban and no one was paying attention to them.”
Smith said that keeping American troops in Afghanistan actually increased the risk for Americans there, generated higher financial costs and delivered an advertising victory and a recruiting tool to America’s enemies.
Some counterterrorism officials believe that al Qaeda would prefer to re-establish its headquarters in Afghanistan, should American troops withdraw. But other officials said the al Qaeda leadership could probably look at Africa or the Middle East.
Although American intelligence officials have focused primarily on the Al Qaeda threat, military officials have also raised the prospect of an increase in the power of the Islamic State’s Afghan arm.
But in recent years, the Taliban has been in conflict with the Islamic State. The two groups fought and the Taliban, for the most part, rejected Islamic State forces.
“I can’t imagine a scenario where ISIS and the Taliban can cooperate or cooperate strategically in Afghanistan,” said Lisa Maddox, a former CIA analyst. “The Taliban is an ideological organization, and that ideology is centered in Afghanistan and is not in line with the general objectives of ISIS.”
The intelligence estimate predicted that the Taliban would expand its control over Afghanistan relatively quickly, suggesting that Afghan security forces remain fragile despite years of training by the American military and billions of dollars in US funding.
Offensives last year in the provinces of Kandahar and Helmand, two areas in the south of the country where the Taliban have long dominated, have demonstrated that local police and forces are unable to stand firm, causing elite and regular army troops take their place – a tactic that is probably unsustainable in the long run.
Afghan security forces still rely heavily on US air support to maintain the territory, which American military leaders recognized this week. It is unclear whether that American airpower would continue if American forces left Afghanistan, perhaps launched from bases in the Persian Gulf, although the Pentagon has worked out such options for the White House.
“The capabilities the United States provides for Afghans to fight the Taliban and other threats residing in Afghanistan are critical to its success,” General Richard D. Clarke, head of Special Operations Command, told the Senate on Thursday. .
Julian E. Barnes and Eric Schmitt reported from Washington, and Thomas Gibbons-Neff from Kabul, Afghanistan. Najim Rahim contributed reporting from Kabul.