The U.S. is gathering over-the-horizon intelligence on terrorist activities in Afghanistan but hasn\u2019t made a strike against ISIS-K and al Qaeda, the head of U.S. Central Command told a Senate panel said.<\/p>\n
Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth McKenzie said Tuesday in answer to a question \u201cyou will be able to draw your own and stark conclusions from that\u201d when the Senate Armed Services Committee moved into closed session in the afternoon.<\/p>\n
In his opening remarks, he said in his final appearance before the Senate panel, \u201cthe margins are thin\u201d on being able to \u201cfind, fix and finish\u201d targets under those conditions. McKenzie added that the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) has been re-constituting itself. He said current intelligence estimates predict that within 12 to 18 months the group might be able to attack targets outside Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Taliban is attempting to maintain pressure on ISIS,\u201d but McKenzie said he expected attacks \u201cto ramp up this summer,\u201d even in Kabul. He added that when the Taliban took control of the country, they \u201cdid not help themselves\u201d when they released more than 1,000 ISIS prisoners. While the security situation in parts of Afghanistan may have improved since the Taliban takeover in August, McKenzie said, \u201cI\u2019m not sure it\u2019s a place you want to be.\u201d In addition to the ISIS-K attacks, he cited the Taliban\u2019s continued reprisals against former Afghan government officials and the elimination of opportunities for women and for girls\u2019 education.<\/p>\n
Although the United States does not recognize the Taliban regime as Afghanistan\u2019s government, McKenzie said, \u201cthere are levers we can apply\u201d to change conditions there. Since the Taliban wants international recognition as the legal government, he said diplomacy and economic aid could sway its behavior. Overall, \u201cthe challenges [in Central Command] have proven remarkably resilient from 1979\u201d to the present \u2013 namely in Iran and Afghanistan, he said. \u201cCENTCOM is the land of less than perfect solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among those \u201cless than perfect solutions\u201d could be a new nuclear weapons agreement with Iran that included some sanctions relief from Washington and putting off further negotiations on Tehran\u2019s burgeoning missile program, he said. McKenzie said Iran\u2019s ballistic and cruise missiles and long-range unmanned aerial systems pose an \u201cexigent threat\u201d to U.S. allies and partners. He said Tehran possessed more than 3,000 missiles in its arsenals, some with effective range to target Tel Aviv, Israel. Iran claimed responsibility for Sunday\u2019s missile attack on Erbil in Iraq. In the dozen-missile strike, some landed near the American consulate in the Kurdish-controlled province. Tehran said it was targeting Israeli facilities there. Kurdish officials denied that there was any Israeli presence in Erbil. Two people were wounded in the attack.<\/p>\n
Tehran also supplies insurgents like the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and militias in Syria and Iraq with missiles and unmanned systems. The Houthis most recently have been striking targets across the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia with Iranian-supplied missiles in retaliation for their military support of the Yemeni government.<\/p>\n
When asked about the value of bringing Israel into the command\u2019s area of responsibility, he said Jerusalem\u2019s addition offered more opportunities to develop a true integrated air and defense missile system, a CENTCOM goal for years, to cover the region.<\/p>\n
McKenzie said Iran\u2019s efforts to gain more leverage with the Iranian government have largely failed since a new agreement was reached between Baghdad and Washington. he pact put Iraq\u2019s security forces in charge of the counterterrorism fight and national defense as the Biden administration announced the end of the U.S. combat mission in July. Some American forces will remain in a training and advising mission.<\/p>\n
To avoid a repetition of the mistakes surrounding the investigation of a U.S. drone missile attack in August that killed 10 civilians in Kabul, McKenzie said the command was re-starting its \u201cred cell\u201d program to \u201cprevent confusion bias\u201d on whether to fire. At the same time, the command is bringing the commanders at every level into the investigation to determine exactly what happened. \u201cYou can\u2019t investigate yourselves,\u201d as was the case in the Kabul strike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The U.S. is gathering over-the-horizon intelligence on terrorist activities in Afghanistan but hasn\u2019t made a strike against ISIS-K<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3655,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[120,318],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afghan-news","category-news-2"],"yoast_head":"\n