Surprise! Afghanistan is still a mess

More than 15 years after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, experts say terrorists in the country have as much control as ever.

President Donald Trump’s recent strike on an ISIS stronghold in Afghanistan, dropping the largest non-nuclear bomb used to date in a rural area of the country, has renewed focus on the status of the U.S.’s longest running war.

The situation is bleak.

Not only has ISIS proliferated throughout the country, but the al-Qaida and Taliban terrorists the U.S. originally struck the country in an attempt to eliminate are also growing more powerful.

Speaking to legislators on Capitol Hill last week, military analyst and Long War Journal editor Bill Roggio said simply: “We are losing in Afghanistan.”

The Obama administration maintained that al-Qaida and the Taliban had, at best, a fraught relationship in recent years, limiting the two groups’ ability to gain large swaths of territory for extremists purposes.

According to Roggio, the former administration’s assessment was purely political, an attempt to give Americans the since that the U.S. is winning in Afghanistan,

“The Taliban-al-Qaida relationship remains strong to this day,” Roggio said. “And with the Taliban gaining control of a significant percentage of Afghanistan’s territory, al-Qaida has more areas to plant its flag.”

Other visitors testifying before the House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade agreed with Roggio that a “terrorist resurgence” is currently underway in the country.

Vanda Felbab-Brown, a fellow at the Brookings Institute, said the how the Trump administration deals with the current problems growing in Afghanistan will send a signal to the world about the U.S.’s resolve in fulfilling its commitments.

“Improving governance, not merely beefing up military efforts or attempting to counter external sponsors of terrorism in Afghanistan, is critical for the success of U.S. counterterrorism efforts,” she said.

The Brookings fellow added: “A disintegration of the Afghan state or an outbreak of a full-blown civil war will be a great boost to salafi groups throughout the world: once again, a great power will be seen as having been defeated by the salafists in Afghanistan.”

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