A former high-ranking CIA official warned that Afghanistan faces the risk of becoming a safe haven for Islamist terrorists.
Robert Grenier, former CIA station chief in Islamabad, wrote in his new book the country could become a sanctuary for Daesh (ISIS) fighters currently engaged in Iraq and Syria.
"I would say if anything the future threat of an Afghan safe haven is maybe even greater than it was back before 9/11," Grenier had previously said at a national security conference.
His comment comes in light of NATO forces withdrawing from the region, which critics say may create more instability in a country still in the middle of conflict.
Grenier said the Afghan Taliban tend to look at issues from a purely religious perspective, asking only whether it’s dictated by Islam. As such they would be unlikely to turn away any extremists seeking sanctuary like Daesh.
“They won’t turn their back on people who are ideologically allied with them across the border,” Grenier said.
Grenier, who served in several senior positions in the agency before retiring in 2006, explains in his book that while the US handily won what he calls “the first American-Afghan war” in 2001 the Americans “lost, or at least certainly didn’t win, the second American-Afghan war.”
Speculating that Western governments will largely ignore Afghanistan once the small US-led force withdraws in two years, Grenier said: “For all the billions spent and lives lost, there is little to show, and most of that will not long survive our departure.”
