The unrest left behind by the Biden-Harris administration in Afghanistan is responsible for the increased terrorist threat around the world, which includes the plot against Taylor Swift’s concerts in Austria.
According to investigators, both al-Qaeda, the Islamic State (“ISIS”) and ISIS-K (“ISIS-Khorasan”, an old name for large parts of Central Asia, including Iran and Afghanistan) were involved in the radicalization of the youths who planned the mass murder at the concert.
Al-Qaeda is now almost fully integrated into the Kabul Taliban regime, while ISIS factions are currently adversaries. However, the world of terrorism does not operate according to corporate principles. Loyalties and ties come and go, sometimes cooperation and armed hostilities coexist and are constantly changing.
After the American withdrawal in 2021, Afghanistan offers ideal conditions: there is so much anarchy and the lack of central control by the Taliban that it has once again become a haven for international terrorists.
As early as October 2021, just weeks after the botched US and NATO withdrawal, senior Biden Defense Department officials testified in public congressional hearings that ISIS-K and al-Qaeda were planning global terrorist attacks. One said: “Current assessments suggest ISIS-K could develop that capability in about six to 12 months. And al-Qaeda would need a year or two to recreate that capability.”
Outside observers saw exactly the same revival when America withdrew: “Afghanistan is once again becoming the cradle of jihadism – and of al-Qaeda,” as the New Yorkers Headlines in August 2021. Worryingly, it was ISIS-K who planned the brutal August 2021 attack on our forces at the Abbey Gate of Kabul Airport during the evacuation.
Western concert and event venues have long been popular targets for terrorists because they attract such large crowds and security is often less stringent than at airports and other sensitive locations. In one terror paradigm, ISIS claimed responsibility for the simultaneous attacks in 2015 on the Bataclan theater in Paris and the Stade de France, Paris’s main sports stadium. More recently, Hamas’s barbaric attack on Israel on October 7 included an attack on a beach concert that killed 364 attendees and police officers and took 40 others hostage.
ISIS-K is increasingly capable of conducting attacks from afar, even in the most hostile counterterrorism environments. In January 2024, for example, ISIS-K attacked a memorial ceremony in Kerman, Iran, for the late Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani, whom the United States had eliminated four years earlier. Despite extraordinary security precautions due to the number of senior Iranian officials in attendance and even advance warning from the Biden administration, ISIS-K killed 80 participants—an extraordinary triumph in the heartland of the world’s most dangerous state sponsor of terrorism.
Then, in March 2024, ISIS-K struck again, this time against the Crocus Theater, a concert arena and a shopping mall in Moscow, killing over 137 people and injuring about 100 others. Vladimir Putin tried to shift the blame to Ukraine, but the blame clearly lay with ISIS-K.
ISIS-K’s plan to target Taylor Swift’s concerts underscores its growing confidence and geographic reach. How long can it take for ISIS-K-sponsored attacks to reach America? The inescapable conclusion is that the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has left us more vulnerable to external terrorist threats than before.
Too many politicians and commentators have completely overlooked the fact that America’s long involvement in Afghanistan was precisely what prevented terrorists from returning and establishing bases from which to carry out large-scale attacks. In late 2020, for example, Senator Rand Paul said that Afghanistan posed no “significant global terrorist threat,” wrongly concluding that we could withdraw without risk.
Of course, it was precisely our presence that made us safe, while our departure made us more vulnerable. In 2020, Paul thought it was “ridiculous” to say it was not time to leave Afghanistan. No one should laugh at that now.
John Bolton served as National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump from 2018 to 2019 and as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006.
