CEP Advisory Board Member Nathan Sales quoted: "Taliban rule has already allowed terrorist organizations to blossom in Afghanistan, and only more will grow, according to Currie and Nathan Sales, a former ambassador-at-large and coordinator for counterterrorism. They said these groups view the U.S. and its Western allies as top targets."

CEP Advisory Board Member Dr. August Hanning quoted: "'It was clear to all experts that [the withdrawal] meant the great danger of the Taliban taking power in Afghanistan,' Dr. August Hanning, former German state secretary of the Federal Interior Ministry and director of Federal Intelligence Services, explained. 'But the prevailing mood in Germany was that government, Parliament and public were tired about the mission and the poor results of the mission in Afghanistan. Therefore, this announcement was also associated with a feeling of relief.'"

CEP Senior Advisor Edmund Fitton-Brown statement: "THE sudden withdrawal of Western troops from Kabul has sparked a worrying resurgence of Islamic State in Afghanistan, as the Islamist organisation’s central command in Syria and Iraq smelled an opportunity."

CEP Senior Advisor Edmund Fitton-Brown statement: "THE sudden withdrawal of Western troops from Kabul has sparked a worrying resurgence of Islamic State in Afghanistan, as the Islamist organisation’s central command in Syria and Iraq smelled an opportunity."

CEP Senior Advisor Edmund Fitton-Brown statement: "THE sudden withdrawal of Western troops from Kabul has sparked a worrying resurgence of Islamic State in Afghanistan, as the Islamist organisation’s central command in Syria and Iraq smelled an opportunity."

"Hans-Jakob Schindler, Sr. Director of the Counter Extremism Project (former Coordinator of the U.N. Al Qaida, Taliban, ISIS monitoring team) discusses what happened."

CEP Advisory Board Member Nathan Sales quoted: "'Zawahiri’s presence in post-withdrawal Afghanistan suggests that, as feared, the Taliban is once more granting safe haven to the leaders of al-Qaeda — a group with which it has never broken,' said Nathan Sales, a former ambassador at large and counterterrorism coordinator for the State Department during the Trump administration.

While the CIA was able to track and kill Zawahiri in Kabul using remote surveillance, it’s not clear that the U.S. success 'can be replicated against other terrorist targets,' Sales added."