Amid remarks by US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials on Al Qaida activity in Afghanistan, US Secretary Antony Blinken said if Al Qaida threatens the United States from Afghanistan, the Taliban will be responsible for it.

Blinken said that although the Taliban has committed to not allow anyone to threaten any country, including the United States, from Afghanistan’s territory, the US will not rely on that commitment. 

“The Taliban has committed to prevent terrorist groups using Afghanistan as a base for external operations that could threaten the United States and our allies, including Al Qaida and ISIS-K. We will hold them accountable for that. That does not mean that we will rely on it, we will maintain a visual effort to monitor threats, robust counterterrorism capabilities in the region to neutralize those threats, if necessary,” he said.

Blinken's remarks come after the BBC, quoting CIA deputy director David Cohen, said the US is seeing signs of potential Al Qaida activity in Afghanistan.

“We are already beginning to see some of the indications of some potential movement of Al Qaida to Afghanistan, but its early days, and we will obviously keep a very close eye on that,” Cohen said.

“It is possible that Al Qaida, with the support of some regional intelligence agencies and the United States’ rival countries, will reemerge in Afghanistan and start its activities and this is a serious threat against the United States,” said Noorullah Walizada, a political analyst.

“In fact, the United States has acknowledged that its policies have failed in Afghanistan, at least in what it had promised to the people of Afghanistan at the beginning of its arrival in Afghanistan,” said Hamid Obaidi, an international relations analyst.

The Taliban meanwhile said they will not allow anyone to threaten any country from Afghanistan. However, Shahab Lewal, a military commander of the Taliban, said the United States and Afghanistan’s former government are to blame for the presence of terrorist groups in Afghanistan such as Al Qaida and Daesh.

According to Lewal, the United States and the former government of Afghanistan prepared the conditions for these groups to emerge in Afghanistan. “This is an allegation meant to discourage the world from working with the Islamic Emirate,” he added.

The United States intervened in Afghanistan in 2001 with the stated intention of suppressing Al Qaida, and it ended its longest war on August 30.