The head of the United Kingdom’s domestic intelligence service MI5, Ken McCallum, warned that Afghanistan is becoming a hotbed for terrorism once again.
McCallum, Director-General of MI5, said that the intelligence service has evidence of terrorist groups reforming and regrouping in Afghanistan, with terrorist recruits traveling to the country in order to join them.
This month, a British man and a European man were caught trying to enter the country to join the Islamic State. The pair were seized at a border crossing in Afghanistan.
Last year in September, McCallum warned that the Taliban takeover would give a morale boost to extremists within Afghanistan, the region, and abroad. He said that terrorist groups would likely begin to reconstruct themselves inside of Afghanistan, and then project that as a threat back at the West.
McCallum said that MI5 has seen people interested in traveling from the United Kingdom to Afghanistan in order to pursue joining terrorist groups.
When the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August, there were immediate international fears that the country would once again turn into a safe haven for terrorist groups, despite promises from the Taliban not to shelter these groups.
The Islamic State affiliate in the country, Islamic State-Khorasan Province, known shortened as ISIS-K, is the most extreme and violent terrorist group in Afghanistan.
In August, ISIS-K claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb that detonated outside of Kabul Airport, killing 170 civilians and 13 U.S. military personnel who were there to help evacuation efforts. It marked the first American military fatalities in Afghanistan since February 2020, when two army sergeants were killed by an insider attack.
McCallum also warned that potential terrorists could be trying to use biological weapons, inspired by the Covid pandemic. He said that people will have seen the pandemic as a game-changing event to be used as an agent in carrying out terrorist attacks.
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