1. A new UN report (Jan. 29) summarizes intelligence from member states concerning both al Qaeda and ISIS:

Here are a handful of highlights...un.org/securitycounci… 2. Several member states say Al Qaeda liaisons are traveling between Iran, where AQ's "de facto" leader Sayf al-Adl resides, and Afghanistan, where other "senior al-Qaeda figures" reside.

1. @CNN reports: Kenneth Chesebro, one of the chief architects of the fake electors scheme, was with Alex Jones outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and also attended the conspiracy rally in Freedom Plaza on the night of Jan. 5. Some thoughts to follow...

cnn.com/2023/08/18/pol… 2. Alex Jones and his InfoWars played a crucial role in the "Stop the Steal" movement between election day 2020 and Jan. 6. You can read about Jones's rhetoric and actions both before and on Jan. 6 in Chapters 6 and 8 of the Jan. 6 Select Committee's final report:

https://t.co/YAAGLDfXm2

Ayman al-Zawahiri survived 20 years of America's war and countless bad takes. In the newly released video, he praises Hurras al-Din's Jan. 1, 2021 attack on a Russian base in Raqqa, Syria. So either this is his ghost or, you know, he didn't die last year. In addition, all of the promotional material for the video and his newly released 852-page book is captioned: "May Allah Protect Him." The introduction for the book he authored is dated April 2021.

1. Note: “Sirajuddin Haqqani also had close relations with a prominent al Qaeda commander, Abdul Rauf Zakir, who was responsible for protecting Osama bin Laden’s son Hamza, according to U.S. intelligence.” - from ⁦@nancyayoussef⁩ & ⁦@SuneEngel⁩ wsj.com/articles/in-ta… 2. Abdul Rauf Zakir is Qari Zakir - a U.S. designated terrorist and a key member of the so-called Haqqani Network. Zakir oversaw suicide attacks. We heard he was killed alongside Hamza bin Laden.

1. Ibrahim Haqqani, the brother Jalaluddin, has been making appearances in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Below he (left) is seen with Hamid Karzai. A file recovered in Osama bin Laden compound shows that he acted as a "guarantor" for a $5 million ransom payment AQ received. 2. Al Qaeda took an Afghan ambassador hostage and, in the spring of 2010, agreed to set him free for a $5 million ransom payment. Several of Osama bin Laden's files discuss the ransom, which was split into two increments: $2 million and then $3 million.

1. The Taliban's list of leaders reveals a key U.S. failure. Many of the Taliban's new leaders are actually veterans who served in the Taliban's regime prior to 9/11. Others have been senior figures for much of the two decades since. They were simply waiting to take over again.

https://twitter.com/LongWarJournal/status/1435714813125136390

2. This illustrates the importance of Pakistan's safe havens -- which kept many Taliban leaders alive and allowed them to direct the war for 20 years. Others were captured and let go - for example, the five Taliban leaders held at Guantanamo who were exchanged for Bowe Bergdahl.

“We will never give up Osama [bin Laden] at any price,” Mullah Hassan Akhund said in Oct. 1999. He was responding to a U.N. demand. See below.

Today, Akhund was named the “head of state” for the Taliban’s resurrected Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. latimes.com/archives/la-xp… Reminder: Mullah Omar himself rejected turning over Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 hijackings. From Sept. 26, 2001:
theguardian.com/world/2001/sep…

1. Some notes on who's who in the Taliban's Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The "acting interior minister" is Sirajuddin Haqqani. He's *very* close with al Qaeda. He's wanted by the U.S. and has a $10 million bounty on his head: rewardsforjustice.net/english/siraju… 2. Khalil Haqqani (Sirajuddin's uncle) is the minister of refugees. He's a U.S.-designated terrorist tied to al Qaeda as well:
treasury.gov/press-center/p…

1. It appears that 4 of the 5 ex-Guantanamo detainees exchanged for Bowe Bergdahl in 2014 have senior positions in the Taliban’s resurrected Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

https://twitter.com/tolonews/status/1435249739826597889

2. Khairullah Khairkhwa is the acting minister for information and culture.
Noorullah Noori is the acting minister of borders and tribal affairs.
Abdul Haq Wasiq is the acting director of intelligence.
Mohammad Fazl is the deputy defense minister.

The Taliban is quickly blaming “terrorists” for the bombings in Kabul. It could be ISIS-K, of course, but the Taliban’s men are terrorists. Not only do they have an unbroken alliance with al Qaeda, the Haqqanis conducted the biggest terrorist attacks in Kabul’s history to date. Again, ISIS-K has a persistent presence and there was credible intelligence of an ISIS-K attack before this. No one should be surprised if it is them. But think about all this before portraying the Taliban as somehow better. And there’s always more to learn.

I think the U.S. has been confused about the Taliban, al Qaeda & the unbroken relationship between the two for many years. AQ has always been deeply embedded within the Taliban's insurgency, which the Haqqanis (AQ's closest allies) have led. The U.S. still doesn't get it.

https://twitter.com/SIGARHQ/status/1430848245991882760

You can see even in this brief tweet by @SIGARHQ (which does excellent work) that there is a fundamental intellectual confusion about the Taliban & AQ. We've documented for many years the overlap between the two in the Afghan insurgency. Just look at the Haqqanis - for starters.

1. "So why did the Afghan military collapse? The answer is threefold," Afghan Gen. Sami Sadat writes.

"First, former President Donald Trump’s February 2020 peace deal with the Taliban in Doha doomed us."

nytimes.com/2021/08/25/opi… 2. "Second, we lost contractor logistics and maintenance support critical to our combat operations. Third, the corruption endemic in Mr. Ghani’s government that flowed to senior military leadership and long crippled our forces on the ground irreparably hobbled us." - Sadat.

1. “A de facto U.S.-Taliban alliance against Islamic State extremists was outlined to me more than two years ago by Gen. Austin ‘Scott’ Miller, the last U.S. commander in Afghanistan.” - David Ignatius writes.

ISIS-K has a persistent presence, but... washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/… 2. ISIS-K never threatened to conquer the country the way the unbroken Taliban-AQ alliance did. Some may defend this “de facto” partnership as realpolitik, but @billroggio and I argued at the time that it doesn’t make sense to take out the lesser threat to enable the greater one.

1. Contrary to what revisionists & Taliban apologists claim, the actual power brokers in the group planned for "long guerrilla war" very quickly -- just like the one fought against the Soviets. Here's Jalaluddin Haqqani in Oct. 2001:
gulfnews.com/uae/taliban-le…

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1429767934654783490

2. Note that Haqqani, who was "responsible for the safety of Osama bin Laden" had "planned the current Taliban military strategy against" the U.S. He said the new government "will never be acceptable to the Afghans," because it would be "secular," and filled with "stooges."

1. There's a lot to criticize about the now deposed government in Kabul. But U.S. policy locked Afghan forces in a death spiral since 2018. There was never any evidence the Taliban was going to share power. American servility wasn't necessary to withdraw forces - as we said. 2. Defenders of the phony "peace" negotiations with the Taliban claim it was necessary to withdraw American troops. False. There are more troops in country right now than when Trump left office. The Taliban was always willing to let America leave.

1. If you are new to our analysis @longwarjournal, you should know that we've been documenting how the U.S. got it wrong with respect to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan for more than a decade. There were errors before that, for sure, but that's when we started keeping track. 2. The U.S. got this wrong from the beginning in various ways. What we came to realize years ago is that the U.S. was *never* going to get this right. That is an indictment of our leaders. It is also a significant cause of this debacle.

,@POTUS just claimed that al Qaeda is "gone" from Afghanistan. Not true. In fact, the Haqqani Network, which is closely allied with al Qaeda, is playing a big role in Kabul right now. The Haqqanis are intertwined with al Qaeda. For more on AQ being in Afghanistan -- right now -- see:
1. longwarjournal.org/archives/2021/…
2. longwarjournal.org/archives/2021/…

1. Trump's acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller says this was the last administration's plan for Afghanistan. If you know anything, you know this is completely clueless. Via @DefenseOne:
defenseone.com/policy/2021/08… 2. The Taliban negotiated the complete withdrawal of American forces in the Feb. '20 Doha deal. The Taliban was never going to agree to a remnant counterterrorism force being place. They demanded, and got, an agreement for a full withdrawal by May 1, 2021.

This is some major gaslighting. The Taliban planned to begin its winning offensive for May 1, the withdrawal date enshrined in Trump’s deal. The Taliban didn’t comply with the counterterrorism provisions or hold real talks with the Afghan government. wsj.com/articles/mike-… The only thing the Taliban did (with some exceptions) was refrain from attacking Americans as the U.S. retreated. We should be glad the Taliban didn’t kill any Americans from Feb ‘20 on, but it also turned all of its guns on the Afghans in a campaign to win the war.

1. This argument is problematic. The U.S. locked the Afghan government in a death spiral since 2018. Many thousands of Afghans were killed or wounded fighting the jihadis as Washington pursued a delusional peace process. The ANDSF was hollowed out before the Taliban’s offensive.

https://twitter.com/AlexThomp/status/1427235607147945987

2. The ANDSF had many other well-documented problems, ranging from rank corruption to “ghost” soldiers to incompetence. Afghan leadership failed, too. But the U.S. ensured the ANDSF’s failure by forcing Kabul to fight for a draw while the Taliban fought for victory.

1. Farah, Ghazni and Kunduz are among the first ten Afghan provincial capitals to fall to the Taliban. Readers of @longwarjournal won't be surprised. We've documented how the Taliban and al Qaeda were preparing to take these cities years in advance. @billroggio in 2018: 2. It has been obvious for years - years - that this offensive was coming. Yet key stakeholders either missed it, or didn't understand it. Here's that 2018 piece from @billroggio explaining the flawed thinking:
longwarjournal.org/archives/2018/…