Thread by @jseldin

HAPPENING NOW: From Sept 1 - Oct 25, "The US gvt has directly facilitated the departure of 240 US citizens & 157 lawful permanent residents, as well as others who have come out on out charters" @DOD_Policy Undersecretary Colin Kahl tells Senate Armed Services Committee

"We are examining & learning from the past..." per @DOD_Policy "...reckoning w/the uncomfortable truth that despite decades & billions of dollars of US investment, the #Afghan military evaporated in the face of the #Taliban assault"

US-#Afghanistan-counterterrorism: "We are actively setting the conditions to ensure we remain situationally aware & are postured to mitigate & neutralize developing terrorist threats & streams" @thejointstaff's LtGen James Mingus tells SASC

"Both #alQaida & #ISIS-K have the intent to conduct external operations" per @DOD_Policy "Neither currently has the capability to do so"

"We could see ISIS-K generate that capability in somewhere btw 6 & 12 months...alQaida would take a year or 2 to reconstitute that capability"

"#Pakistan is a challenging actor but they don't want #Afghanistan to be a safe haven for terrorist attacks, not just against Pakistan but against others" per @DOD_Policy

"They continue to give us access to Pakistani airspace & we're in conversations about keeping that airspace open" per @DOD_Policy, further describing current CT relationship w/#Pakistan as "pretty good"

US citizens/residents evacuated from #Afghanistan since the withdrawal/NEO ended:

314 citizens
266 lawful permanent residents

per @DOD_Policy

Another 196 US citizens in #Afghanistan, in touch w/@StateDept, "ready to depart" per @DOD_Policy

"Another 243 American citizens have been contacted & are not ready to depart" for various reasons, he adds

28,000 #Afghan SIVs are in the pipeline, per @DOD_Policy

8,555 have come out w/their family members , he says, saying the suggests a "significant number" remain in #Afghanistan

Can #Taliban defeat #ISIS-#Khorasan?

"It is our assessment that the Taliban & ISIS-K are mortal enemies" per @DOD_Policy "The Taliban is highly motivated to go after ISIS-K. Their ability to do so, I think, is to be determined"

@SenatorWicker slams @DOD_Policy, @thejointstaff's LtGen Mingus for their opening statements regarding the #Afghan forces as "unworthy" of their positions

"It was a decision by this administration to pull support for the Afghan Nat'l Defense Forces that led to the debacle..."

"#ISIS-K could potentially develop the capability [to attack US] within 6-12 months" per @DOD_Policy "#alQaida could potentially develop that capability within 1-2 years"

"We are fairly certain they have the intention to do so..We have considerable evidence they have the intent"

US 'over-the-horizon' strike options/basing re #Afghanistan:

"We've not secured firm basing arrangements" per @DOD_Policy "We have had extensive conversations"

"We're in conversations w/#Pakistan to keep the air line of communication open" per @DOD_Policy "We've also had conversations w/#Uzbekistan & #Tajikistan which we can talk about in the closed session"

"It is more challenging to collect" intel on terror threats in #Afghanistan, per @thejointstaff's LtGen Mingus

#Afghanistan: "The war as we know it isn't continuing but the terrorist threat continues" per @DOD_Policy

"I think what we saw unfold in the past few months would have happened whenever we left #Afghanistan" per @DOD_Policy on collapse of #Afghan gvt, takeover by the #Taliban

@SenAngusKing on the #DohaAgreement signed w/#Taliban under former Pres Trump: "I've read it probably 10 times. I'm a country lawyer, but it's not conditions based..."

@SenAngusKing then asks what would have happened if @JoeBiden did not abide by #DohaAgreement

"It's my belief, attacks from the #Taliban, the one condition of the Doha Agreement that they did generally adhere to, would have resumed" per @thejointstaff's LtGen Mingus

@thejointstaff's LtGen Mingus adds assessments were a US presence of 2,500 troops would have been sufficient to defend against the attacks from the #Taliban

"The assessment by the intelligence community was that us staying at 2,500 was not producing a stalemate-it was an eroding stalemate" per @DOD_Policy "At some pt, even if we weren't taking casualties, the president would have faced pressure to escalate..."

"The president did not believe that 2,500 troops was a stable equilibrium" in #Afghanistan, per @DOD_Policy

@SenAngusKing joins calls for nonpartisan commission to examine #Afghanistan

"I think this is our 6th hearing on Afghanistan in the last several months...We had zero hearing that I can recall on the #DohaAgreement, which was really the heart of the departure from Afghanistan..."

"...So the umbrage & outrage about what's happened since this summer rings a little hollow for me bcs there was no umbrage or outrage when the former administration made an agreement w/the #Taliban, essentially unconditional, to get our troops out by a certain date" per Sen King

"The intelligence community assesses that the overall risk to the homeland across the world is at its lowest point since 9-11" per @DOD_Policy, adding still "have to be vigilant" vs #ISIS-#Khorasan & #alQaida

"We need to be vigilant in disrupting that" he adds of ISIS, alQaida

Background on US intel views of the terror threat, inclu from #Afghanistan

https://twitter.com/jseldin/status/1440319509110280200?s=20

US CT options for #Afghanistan - 'We have a robust presence in the Gulf" per @DOD_Policy "Beyond that we should really talk about this in the closed session"

"We need to build out more capability" adds @DOD_Policy, so that US is not reliant only on the CT capabilities in the Gulf

#Afghanistan

"We are deploying ISR over #Afghanistan every single day. We also have national technical means" per @DOD_Policy, adding there is intel sharing w/partners like #Britain

"We have seen signs...that the #Taliban is wary abt #Afghanistan being a springboard for #alQaida external attacks, not bcs the Taliban are good guys but bcs they fear int'l retribution if that were to occur" per @DOD_Policy

Estimates for #ISIS-#Khorasan, #alQaida regenerating capability to attack US, West "That's based on no US or coalition intervention" per @thejointstaff's LtGen Mingus

US straategy-"The goal would be to keep those time horizons were they're at now if not even further" he adds

"Both #Russia & #China are nervous, despite what their propaganda outlets would suggest" per @DOD_Policy

"Both #Moscow & #Beijing are more willing to work w/the #Taliban than we are..." he adds

#Afghanistan's neighbors also worry about terrorism and refugee flows, per @DOD_Policy

"We've never known as much about #Afghanistan as we thought we did" per @DOD_Policy

"A lot of the deep structural challenges Afghanistan had...those were realities we were not able to overcome"

Other areas of concern for US re terrorism:

"We're focused on the counterterrorism front on #Somalia, the growth of violent extremism in places like the #Sahel" per @DOD_Policy "We continue to have to vigilant in #Iraq & in #Syria & in #Yemen"

#ISIS-#Khorasan-"I don't think they are nearly as well resources as ISIS in #Iraq & #Syria were back in the heyday" per @DOD_Policy "For the moment ISIS-K is mostly focused on creating havoc within #Afghanistan..."

"...But they do have a cadre of a few thousand folks some of which would love to conduct external attacks " @DOD_Policy says of #ISIS-#Khorasan

"#ISIS-K is obviously linked to the broader ISIS network globally & so I think we have to vigilant that a subset of ISIS-K could develop the resources & the capability to strike outward to the US homeland ... we have to be poised to disrupt that" per @DOD_Policy

"I think the #Taliban is pretty committed to going after #ISIS-K. I don't think there's a willpower question there" per @DOD_Policy "So I've not seen huge gains by ISIS-K. We have seen carry out some horrific bombings against minority populations..."

"Our efforts in the months ahead & as we continue to improve our over-the-horizon architecture is to ensure that that external capability never comes to fruition" per @thejointstaff's LtGen Mingus