Civil war will "likely" erupt in Afghanistan and this could lead to al-Qaeda's resurgence, U.S. Gen. Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Fox News on Saturday.
Driving the news: He said it's too early to say whether the U.S. was safer now American troops have left Afghanistan, but it's "very likely" there'd be a renewal of terrorism in the region "within 12, 24, 36 months, and we're going to monitor that."
- "My military estimate is ... that the conditions are likely to develop [into] a civil war," Milley said in the interview with Fox News' Jennifer Griffin from Germany's Ramstein Air Base.
- "I don't know if the Taliban is going to be able to consolidate power and establish governance," he continued.
- "But I think there's at least a very good probability of a broader civil war and that will then in turn lead to conditions that could, in fact, lead to a reconstitution of Al-Qaeda or a growth of ISIS or other myriad terrorist groups."
Context: President Biden blamed ISIS-K for a suicide bombing that killed 60 Afghans and 13 American troops at Kabul's international airport just before the complete U.S. troop withdrawal from the country last month.
- U.S. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie warned after the blast that such attacks by the ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan would likely continue.
- American forces helped oust the Taliban from Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. due to their links to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. But the BBC notes that the Taliban is neither a centralized nor unified force.
- Al-Qaeda's power within the group remains unclear, but the Taliban released many of Al-Qaeda's senior operatives when it captured Bagram Air Base last month.
Meanwhile, the Taliban is fighting resistant forces in the Panjshir Valley — the last holdout in Afghanistan against the group.
Of note: Milley also spoke to Griffin about security measures American officials were taking to process some 17,000 Afghan evacuees headed for the U.S. — such as registering names, conducting biometrics checks and searching 20 years of databases.
- "They've had ... I think they said a couple of hundred or something like that of popped red," Milley said.
- "Once the individual comes out as red, something is up; then they go into an individual room and start interviewing" with officials from the FBI and other agencies to look into the issues, Milley noted.
Go deeper: Joint Chiefs chair moves up terrorist threat in Afghanistan
