Taliban terrorists captured the Bagram Airbase and released thousands of Al Qaeda and ISIS prisoners

The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan’s last major government stronghold of Kabul, the capital city, may not be the only problem that Western nations – particularly the United States – must worry about.

It is the thousands of notorious criminals and terrorists who just got a taste of freedom from Afghanistan’s maximum-security prison.

The Taliban have set free thousands of Afghanistan’s most dangerous terrorist prisoners after the insurgent group seized control of the former U.S. military installation at Bagram and the detention facility known as the country’s “Guantanamo Bay.”

The inmates, including senior al Qaeda operatives, were some of the Taliban’s most ferocious and hardened combatants and could pose a threat to Afghanistan’s people and American security interests, experts say.

U.S. forces turned over control of the military airbase, situated on the outskirts of Kabul, to the Afghan government early last month.

The Afghan security forces surrendered the base to the Taliban without resistance on Sunday, as other insurgent troops overran the American consulate in the capital and the presidential palace, reports say.

The U.S. invaded Afghanistan following al Qaeda’s terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The Taliban harbored al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his terror group for years and were toppled from power.

The prison in Bagram — called Parwan Detention Facility — housed 5,000 “highest value” al-Qaeda and Islamic State (ISIS) and Taliban terrorists captured on the battlefield. It also includes senior drug trafficking figures. According to Taliban representative, the prisoners were “being evacuated to a safe place.”

Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told U.S. senators the freed inmates would accelerate a previous evaluation of how fast terrorist organizations will regroup and re-arm themselves in Afghanistan, Axios reported.

The United Nations Security Council’s monitoring panel concluded in May that Afghanistan “remains host” to some armed groups that comprise international terrorist fighters, the Washington Examiner said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has repeatedly said it’s in the “self-interest” of the Taliban not to harbor a terrorist group that wants to harm the U.S.

According to Blinken, the Taliban is fully aware of what took place the last time they coddled a terrorist group that attacked the U.S., and it’s not in their self-interest to let that happen again.

Source: Business Times