Editorial of the “World”. It was the worst case scenario and, if they were able to predict it, the United States was powerless to prevent it. For several days, Washington had issued warnings about the likelihood of terrorist acts in the area of the Kabul airport.
Thursday August 26, this threat became reality, when two bombs exploded near the airport, where the Afghans decided to leave the country were still massed, killing, according to the AP agency, more than 100 people including thirteen American soldiers. . The Afghan branch of the Islamic State organization immediately claimed responsibility for the double attack.
Already marred by the death of several Afghan civilians crushed during crowd movements, the retreat from Kabul thus turns into a disaster. The United States and its allies can however claim to have evacuated, thanks to the airlift in place, more than 100,000 people in ten days, a feat in particularly difficult conditions. President Joe Biden assured Thursday evening that the operation would continue until August 31. But, beyond the human tragedy, these terrorist attacks have serious implications for Washington and its allies.
“We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will chase you and we will make you pay. “ The vengeance promised from the White House by a visibly shaken Joe Biden means that, if they wished to definitively turn the page on their involvement in the region, the United States is in fact not done with the fight against Islamist terrorism .
Paradoxical cooperation
As the twentieth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks approached, which triggered the US intervention in Afghanistan the following month, US forces found themselves under fire from an outgrowth of Al-Qaida, the terrorist organization that they had managed to drive out from their Afghan sanctuary.
By evoking Thursday evening the “Metastases” of Islamist terrorism, President Biden has implicitly recognized the American failure to defeat this cancer. After having fought Al-Qaida, the United States and its allies fought the Islamic State organization in Iraq, Syria and the Sahel; present in Africa, metastases have also reached Asia.
Another lesson from the double Kabul bombing is that the Taliban, theoretically new masters of Afghanistan, do not control these terrorist groups. Under the Doha deal, concluded in February 2020 with the Trump administration, which is largely responsible for the current chaos, the Taliban pledged that there would be no attacks against coalition troops until their total withdrawal. They have not been able to prevent rival groups from engaging in it.
The fight against the Islamic State organization has even led to paradoxical cooperation between the Taliban and the Americans in recent days in an attempt to secure the airport, a ” common objective “, in the words of an American military official.
The Kabul airport drama recalls other painful American failures, such as the failed attempt to release hostages in Iran in 1980 under Jimmy Carter, or the attack on the United States Embassy branch in Benghazi , Libya, September 11, 2012.
The inventory of mistakes made over the past twenty years has started and it is necessary. But the United States may well want to fall back, it has no other choice but to continue its commitment against terrorism. Jihadism is global today and America and its allies remain a privileged target.
