WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden says even with the Taliban in power in Afghanistan, he sees a greater threat from outposts of al-Qaida and its affiliated groups in other countries, and that it was no longer “rational” to continue to focus U.S. military power there.
“We should be focusing on where the threat is the greatest,” Biden said in an interview that aired on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Thursday.
“And the idea we can continue to spend a trillion dollars, and have tens of thousands of American forces in Afghanistan, when we have North Africa and Western Africa – the idea we can do that and ignore those looming problems, growing problems, is not rational.”
Biden has said repeatedly that America will not send significantly more forces to fight in Afghanistan. The U.S. has not had tens of thousands there for several years and had 2,500 to 3,000 deployed there when Biden took office.
Biden named Syria and East Africa as places where the Islamic State group poses a “significantly greater threat” than in Afghanistan and said that ISIS has “metastasized.” He said while the U.S. doesn’t have a sizable military presence in a place like Syria, it does have an “over the horizon capability to take them out.”