Washington: Following the withdrawal of United States military forces from Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda terrorists are setting up training centers and bases in remote areas of northeastern Afghanistan, according to US and Afghan officials.
Fears are growing despite the addition of 30,000 US troops last year, the terror organization has exploited vacuums in Kunar and Nuristan created by the decision to withdraw US troops back to more populated areas in both Afghan provinces and concentrate firepower in the south.
Some US military officials have expressed concerned over the President Barack Obama decision of sending American soldiers home in July. They said Al-Qaeda is making a comeback in Afghanistan nearly a decade after it was flown into Pakistan’s neighbouring tribal areas by the US invasion.
A Taliban commander told the Wall Street Journal that “in these bases fighters from around the world are training” to be “suicide bombers, guerrillas and experts” in improvised explosive devices.
The training camps are so far however considered too small and too temporary to act as launch pads for attacks on the West in the manner Osama bin Laden used them for preparing the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
But Al-Qaeda activities in the northeast Afghanistan has picked up considerably in the past six to eight months, particularly in the Korengal Valley in Kunar, which US forces abandoned in the summer of 2009.
According to research by the Long War Journal, a blog from the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies, the terror group has a presence in eight of Kunar’s 15 districts.
Last autumn two Al-Qaeda camps were struck by the US jets, killing dozens of foreign fighters, including a number of Al-Qaeda figures. Another raid in December captured Abu Ikhlas al-Masri, described as a leading Al-Qaeda operative.
Taliban militants killed six US soldiers and an Afghan soldier and at least 15 others wounded in an ambush in Kunar, last week.
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