Washington [US], September 21 (ANI/Sputnik): Terrorist groups are searching for US weaknesses in efforts to pull off a mass casualty attack reminiscent of September 11, 2001, especially with the American exit from Afghanistan, FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress on Tuesday.
"We are certainly watching the evolving situation in Afghanistan. Now 9/11 was 20 years ago but for us at the FBI, as I know it does for my colleagues here with me, it represents a danger we focus on every day and make no mistake the danger is real," Wray said in testimony to the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
Wray named the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and al-Shabab (terrorist groups banned in Russia) as groups that "continue to look for vulnerabilities and have not stopped trying to carry out large scale attacks against us."
US intelligence agencies have warned that al-Qaeda could use Afghan soil to plot attacks on the United States sooner than expected. They said an attack was likely imminent in the next 1-2 years with the US withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan shortening the timeline.
President Joe Biden as part of the rationale for withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan was that terrorism is a global threat not relegated to Afghanistan. The Taliban in a deal with the United States committed to not allowing the country to be used by terrorists to launch attacks.
Afghanistan provided the base for al-Qaeda and the group's late leader Osama bin Laden to plan and direct the September 11 attacks, prompting a US invasion and two decades of fighting that followed. (ANI/Sputnik)