THE UK faces an “immediate” danger of a terror attack on the same scale as 9/11 after the Taliban gained control of Afganistan, security experts have warned.
The radical islamists this week declared their victory a “proud moment for the nation” – but it’s not just Afghans who should be worried according to British intelligence.
Yesterday the leader of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan Ahmad Masood warned: “The Taliban is not a problem for the Afghan people alone. Plots against democracies will be hatched here once again.”
During the brutal years of Taliban rule in the 1990s and early 2000s terror networks notoriously used Afghanistan as a base to plot attacks.
Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda masterminded the 9/11 attacks from the country – prompting the initial Western invasion.
Now British counter terror officers feel the takeover could give al-Qaeda back the “ungoverned spaces” where Bin Laden plotted.
Former MI5 boss Lord Jonathan Evans told The Mirror: “If they get the opportunity to put down infrastructure to train and to operate then that will pose a threat to the West.
“There’s also the psychological effect of the inspiration that some people will draw from the failure of Western power in Afghanistan.
“In practical terms and in terms of ungoverned space, but also in psychological terms, it probably means an increase in threat over the coming months and years.”
Meanwhile Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan said: “There is the possibility of a 9-11 style spectacular, on government buildings, sports grounds, major targets.”
He added: “If they cannot get the US, the UK remains a large target.
“Freedom in Afghanistan, as we have seen with 9-11, will give them time and help to plan such an attack.”
Earlier today the Taliban set a woman on fire for her “bad cooking” as members of the extremist group went door-to-door terrorising villagers.
Najla Ayoubi, a former Afghan judge and head of coalition and global programmes at Every Woman Treaty which campaigns to end violence against women, said she had received harrowing stories of “bad behaviour and violence against women”.
She told Sky News one woman yesterday was “put on fire because she was accused of bad cooking for Taliban fighters” in the north of the country.
Ayoubi added: “They are forcing people to give them food and cook them food.
“Also there are so many young women are being in the past few weeks being shipped into neighbouring countries in coffins to be used as sex slaves.
“They also force families to marry their young daughters to Taliban fighters.
“I don’t see where the promise is that they think women should be going to work, when we are seeing all of these atrocities.”
Source: The Sun
