Afghanistan: New Haven for Old Terrorists?

A high ranking Pakistani diplomat told Sputnik that the US harbors terrorists in Afghanistan to keep the region destabilized and maintain a military presence in the country.

As Americans are withdrawing from Afghanistan, the future of the region remains unstable with the presence of the Taliban in the country and with the rise of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. According to an ex-CIA official, Afghanistan is in danger of turning into a sanctuary for extremists as the West pulls out troops and shifts its attention elsewhere.

Robert Grenier, the former Central Intelligence Agency station chief based in Islamabad, Pakistan, said, “I would say if anything the future threat of an Afghan safe haven is maybe even greater than it was back before 9/11,” during an event held by New America think tank.

But according to a former Pakistani high ranking diplomat who spoke to Sputnik on conditions of anonymity, “As Americans are thinning their forces in Afghanistan, it is all eyewash for the world. Actually they are letting the Islamic factions of Taliban reestablish so that they continue to tell the world of their come back.”

The diplomat further said that Afghanistan is already a haven for terrorists with America supplying arms and money to the Fazlullah gang. He said that these terrorists are harbored by them with the aim to keep Pakistan destabilized. “These statements are given by the US to keep their control in the area,” he said.

Meanwhile, the ex-CIA station chief said that there are groups within Pakistan that are committed to attacking the regime in Islamabad. According to Grenier, Taliban are inclined to see things in black-and-white terms, looking at decisions through the question: “Is it dictated by Islam or is it not?”

“And they won’t turn their back on people who are ideologically allied with them across the border. Nor do I believe will they turn their backs on international terrorists, if once again they come back to the region in any significant numbers, as I fear they will if their fortunes take a bad turn,” he said.

Grenier recently published a book called, “88 Days to Kandahar,” in which he talks about how the America quickly won what he calls “the first American-Afghan war” in 2001, and “how we lost, or at least certainly didn’t win, the second American-Afghan war.”

According to him the book ends with a warning about “how the errors of the past may yet be revisited when once again we may be called upon to fight a third American-Afghan war.”