Could ISIS in Afghanistan gain the ability to strike the United States in six months?

 

Undersecretary of Defense Colin Kahl. The Guardian/Shutterstock. 

The US defense community warns that ISIS and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan could be able to strike the United States in as little in six months. The Guardian. They said that neither al-Qaeda or the Afghan branch of ISIS have the ability to launch attacks now but could gain that ability in six to twelve months. ISIS has been very active in Afghanistan since the US pullout, launching several major attacks against the Taliban and their Shiite subjects. Though the two groups are at war it is unclear if the Taliban can do much to stop ISIS. ISIS may have as many as 1000 fighters in Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda poses a different risk given their close ties to the Taliban, but the defense community believes it would take much longer, two to three years, before they would be capable of attacking the United States. 

My Comment:

I have mixed feelings about this. I always take proclamations from the Defense Department with a major grain of salt. They have a motivation to lie about the threat caused by ISIS and al-Qaeda as they get funding based on that threat. That doesn't mean they are always wrong, mind you, but it is something to keep in mind. 

Plus, I don't think ISIS is an immediate threat. The reason core ISIS was such a threat back in the day was because they had a major tax base, control over a huge amount of territory, thousands of willing recruits and open borders to get fighters into attack other countries. None of those things are true for ISIS in Afghanistan and I don't see it changing in the short term or even the long term. 

ISIS has also totally changed tactics in Afghanistan. They seem to have given up on taking and holding territory and are now acting more like a traditional terror group. They have gone underground and try to avoid pitched battles with the Taliban. Though it would seem morphing into a traditional terror group would give ISIS more opportunities but they are giving up on the taxes and looting that would pay for those attacks. 

I also don't see how ISIS would get out of Afghanistan. They are surrounded by hostile powers and America has the ocean to prevent infiltration. Europe might be under more of a threat but even then I don't see how they would do it. They just don't have the logistics to accomplish it. 

The big threat from ISIS is the thousands of Afghans that were evacuated to the United States during the pullout. None of these people were vetted and it's very possible that a few of them were ISIS fighters. And even if none of them were they are a base from which to recruit from. If an attack comes it will be from there. 

Al-Qaeda is another situation entirely. Unlike ISIS they have the support of the Taliban and they have used Afghanistan as a base before. I am sure they want to attack the United States. The big problem they have is that al-Qaeda has been almost totally destroyed. They get few recruits as well and I don't see them being a threat anytime soon. But if they do manage to reform I do think they are more of a threat than ISIS, with a caveat. Unlike ISIS, al-Qaeda usually tries to go for complex, spectacular attacks that are easy to detect and get disrupted easily. If they don't change that tactic I don't see much of a threat from them.