Will al-Qaeda's continuing presence in Afghanistan scupper the Taliban peace deal?

FULLER VERSION OF MY TIMES PIECE TODAY: Dozens of Al-Qaeda fighters still pose a potential threat in Afghanistan despite 19 years of relentless US-led special operations missions since 9/11 because of continuing Taliban protection and donations from foreign backers, an American counter-terrorist official has told The Times. They are hunkered down in Afghanistan’s northeastern provinces of Kunar and Nuristan, close to the Pakistan border, the official said. They are being financed, it is suspected, by donations from individuals and “charities” located in Saudi Arabia and in Gulf states, he said. The presence of al-Qaeda in this hostile mountainous region and the safe haven they have been granted by the Taliban is one of the obstacles in the current peace-settlement negotiations between the Americans and insurgency leaders. Under the draft settlement negotiated in Doha, capital of Qatar, there are four priority components including a ceasefire, but Washington says the most important one is an assurance from the Taliban “that it will break with all terrorists and prevent the use of Afghan soil under its control against the US, its allies or any other country”. At present the “few dozen” al-Qaeda members in Afghanistan “are primarily focused on their own survival”, the US official said. They are linked directly to the main al-Qaeda (AQ) organisation headed by Ayman al-Zawahiri who is believed by US intelligence to be located in this same region. Zawahiri has declared his allegiance to the Taliban. In return for his backing of the insurgency against the US and coalition forces, the Taliban “provides safe haven to the few remaining al-Qaeda in Afghanistan”, the official said. However, since 2014 an al-Qaeda franchise, AQ in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) which has “several hundred fighters in its ranks”, has also posed a threat to US forces in Afghanistan and they, too , depend on links with the Taliban. AQIS is based in Pakistan but operates in Afghanistan, India, Bangladesh and Myanmar. “AQIS has its own leadership cadre, receives strategic guidance from Zawahiri and has pledged allegiance to the Taliban”, the US counter-terrorist official said. “AQIS has publicly stated that the US is its main enemy and it prioritises targeting US interests in the region,” the official said. “Al-Qaeda and AQIS’s networks have been significantly degraded but the groups probably continue to rely on donations from individuals, businesses or charities based in Gulf countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, for their primary source of revenue,” the official said. In the last two years, US-led counter-terrorist operations have eliminated numerous AQIS leaders, including its founding “emir”, Asim Umar, who was killed in a joint US/Afghan raid in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan on September 23 last year. Though the terrorists remain a threat within Afghanistan, American-led operations against al-Qaeda since 2001, and against AQIS since 2014, have prevented either group “from being able to use Afghanistan to conduct external attacks against the US or other Western countries”. Of the 13,000 US troops in Afghanistan about 5,000 are engaged in counter-terrorist operations. The threat from AQ and AQIS in Afghanistan is significantly less than that from Isis-Khorasan (Isis-K) which has several thousand members located in eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, Isis -K is not protected by the Taliban and will remain a challenge both for the US and for the insurgents if a peace deal is agreed. But all ties with al-Qaeda would have to be severed before the US will sign any agreement.