If Trump stopped committing crimes, the crime rate would go down. 🤣😇 https://t.co/w7q2s1TlmG
— KT “Special CIA Operation” (@KremlinTrolls) August 29, 2024
Day: August 29, 2024
The 🇹🇭 Air Force now buys Gripen E/F advanced fighters after having operated Gripen C/D earlier. https://t.co/13axDhdVPx
— Carl Bildt (@carlbildt) August 29, 2024
BURGER-GATE!
Unnamed sources tell Hasson that she was particularly friendly with the chain’s criminal element! pic.twitter.com/TTkpLQ2LKf
— SPIES&VESPERS (@SpiesVespers) August 29, 2024
Fears that Afghanistan would become a launching pad for terrorist attacks around the world after the withdrawal of U.S. troops turned out to be wrong, CIA Deputy Director David Cohen has said.
Cohen was referring to warnings from some US lawmakers and analysts that President Joe Biden’s decision to pull out troops from Afghanistan in 2021 has opened the door to a resurgence of terrorist groups in that country.
Republican lawmakers have criticised the Biden administration over its handling of the U.S. exit and argued that Afghanistan is once again a safe haven for terrorist groups, including ISIS-Khorasan – the most lethal part of the Islamic State Terrorist group.
ISIS-K has killed or injured thousands of people in Afghanistan and Pakistan since its inception in 2015. The branch also has conducted attacks in Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, and it seeks to conduct operations against the United States and Europe.
But Cohen told a national security conference: “The dire predictions have not come to pass.”
A United Nations report in July said that foreign governments were increasingly concerned about terrorist threats from Afghanistan, including ISIS-K.
The report said ISIS-K relies on networks of “facilitators” in Afghanistan and Turkey that are capable of moving operatives from Central Asia and Afghanistan “towards Europe to conduct external operations.”
ISIS-K has bolstered its financial, logistical and recruitment efforts and likely provided fighters, funds and training for large-scale attacks carried out earlier this year in Russia and Iran, according to the U.N. report.
Cohen said that Washington has shifted its national security priorities in recent years to focus on China and Russia, but said that combating terrorism remains a mission at which the country’s intelligence agencies cannot afford to fail.
Cohen added: “We continue to invest in it, we’re continuing to deploy resources”.
He said that the Islamic State terrorist group, including its branch in Afghanistan known as ISIS-K, remains the top terrorist threat.
The terrorist threat landscape is now more diffuse and, in some ways, more complicated than after the years following the 9/11 attacks on the United States, he said.
But he added that “it’s worthwhile to take stock of some progress” in the U.S. counterterrorism fight.
Cohen cited the U.S. operation that killed Al Qaeda’s chief, Ayman Zawahiri, in a safe house in Kabul in 2022 as an example of a counterterrorism success.
He also said that the CIA has kept in communication with the Taliban, which now rules Afghanistan, reminding the group of its commitment to ensure the country does not again become a staging ground for terrorist attacks abroad.
“We have been engaging with them, all throughout this period, in various ways, as they have taken on the effort to combat both Al Qaeda and ISIS-K,” Cohen said.
“And so this isn’t a ‘mission accomplished’ sort of thing. But it is worth noting that in Afghanistan today, the dire predictions have not come to pass,” he said.
Cohen said the CIA and other intelligence agencies played a pivotal role in helping Austrian authorities thwart a potentially lethal plot by operatives linked to ISIS to attack a scheduled Taylor Swift concert in Vienna earlier this month.
The suspects “were plotting to kill a huge number of people,” he said.
“The Austrians were able to make those arrests because the agency and our partners in the intelligence community provided information about what this ISIS-connected group was planning to do,” Cohen said.
As a result, hundreds of lives were saved, he said, an example of what he called the “successes” in counterterrorism efforts that sometimes go overlooked.
“We do occasionally make progress,” Cohen said.
Swift had been scheduled to perform at Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna to an estimated 170,000 fans. But the shows were called off after Austrian police said that the planned terrorist attack had targeted the concerts.
The post Afghanistan has not become a safe haven for terrorists, claims CIA chief first appeared on National Security News.
Opinion: Why is Shoigu not in detention?
More and more ex-Deputy Ministers from Shoigu’s inner circle are ending up being detained and charged with fraud. Despite this, the ex-Minister of Defense somehow appears to remain in Putin’s graces while serving in his new position as… pic.twitter.com/oR1sl05wWG
— OSINT (Uri Kikaski) 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 🇬🇧 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@UKikaski) August 29, 2024
Karim Khan, ICC Prosecutor Since 2021, Explained In 2016 How The ICC’s Prosecution, Investigative Focus Are Flawed – This Ship Is ‘Not Seaworthy’; International Investigations Are Serious Business, Should Not Be Conducted In The Glare Of The CNN, BBC, Al-Jazeera News Cycle pic.twitter.com/e3fNG858Qk
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) August 29, 2024
Photo of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director William Burns who will be the key to a smooth transition in terminating the agency should they be in violation from my mission as an infant (#whistleblower), who’s file was removed in a sting op for the CIA regulations. If the… pic.twitter.com/nPSTV80JZp
— Capt. Wayne Luke (@WayneLuke) August 29, 2024
Ex CIA officer Dr. Sue Arrigo’s powerful 48 page story her truth is why my mission as a CIA officer is written in the CIA regulations I wrote to CIA Dir William Burns requesting he recruit Dr Arrigo to be involved in investigating my missionhttps://t.co/6RsOtvzdFy
Efforts to…— Capt. Wayne Luke (@WayneLuke) August 29, 2024
Karim Khan, #ICC Prosecutor Since 2021, Explained In 2016 How The ICC’s Prosecution, Investigative Focus Are Flawed; International Investigations Should Not Be Conducted In Glare Of #CNN, #BBC, #AlJazeera News Cycle – Audio of report here https://t.co/LTabMNyVfv #MEMRI pic.twitter.com/eTS2941mW8
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) August 29, 2024