Nearly two years after America’s ill-fated withdrawal from Afghanistan, the country has once again become a staging ground for international terrorist networks plotting attacks against America and its allies, a recent intelligence leak discloses.

According to a report in the Washington Post, classified intelligence leaked on the social media platform Discord by a junior Air National Guard serviceman suggest that the Islamic State has regrouped in Afghanistan and planned attacks on churches, embassies, business centers, and even the World Cup soccer tournament in Qatar last year. The Pentagon assessment — which is labeled top-secret and is stamped with the logos of several Defense Department agencies — counted nine such plots in December and 15 in February.

“ISIS has been developing a cost-effective model for external operations that relies on resources from outside Afghanistan, operatives in target countries, and extensive facilitation networks,” says the assessment. “The model will likely enable ISIS to overcome obstacles — such as competent security services — and reduce some plot timelines, minimizing disruption opportunities.”

Other documents in the same trove of leaked intelligence speak of plans by the organization to source chemical weapons, operate drone aircraft, and kidnap Iraqi diplomats in Europe in an effort to secure the release of thousands of ISIS fighters being held in that country.

Administration officials would not publicly verify the documents’ authenticity. Instead, they touted President Biden’s efforts to combat terrorism in other locales such as Somalia. An anonymous Defense Department official is quoted as saying that, in reality, Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders are often at odds with ISIS factions in the country and frequently raid the group’s known hideouts in the country.

“I would never want to say that we had mortgaged our counterterrorism to a group like the Taliban, but it’s a fact that, operationally, they put pressure on ISIS-K,” the official tells the Post. “In a strange world, we have mutually beneficial objectives there.” 

After two decades and the deaths of 2,400 American servicemen and women — the nation’s longest lasting war in history — the Biden administration hastily withdrew the last U.S. troops from the country in August of 2021. The Taliban immediately took control, but not before an ISIS suicide bomber managed to kill hundreds of Afghans and 13 American soldiers at the airport in Kabul.

A 12-page analysis of the withdrawal prepared by the National Security Council and released earlier this month blamed the botched withdrawal on President Biden’s predecessor in the White House. The president took no responsibility for the fiasco, insisting that his administration was hampered by actions taken by President Trump.

“President Biden’s choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor,” the White House summary stated, noting that when Biden entered office, “the Taliban were in the strongest military position that they had been in since 2001, controlling or contesting nearly half of the country.”

Mr. Trump responded by accusing the Biden administration of playing “a new disinformation game” to distract from “their grossly incompetent SURRENDER in Afghanistan.” On his social media site, Truth Social, he said, “Biden is responsible, no one else!”

Republicans in Congress have accused the administration of stonewalling several investigations into the withdrawal and its aftermath. The House Foreign Affairs committee, headed by Michael McCaul, a Republican from Texas, has promised “rigorous oversight of the ongoing failures of current U.S. Afghanistan policy, including … the deficient U.S. counterterrorism capabilities in the region.”