Biden: Greater threats than Taliban-controlled Afghanistan

By ROBERT BURNS, ELLEN KNICKMEYER and ZEKE MILLER
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Biden says that even with the Taliban in power in Afghanistan, he sees a greater threat from al-Qaida and its affiliated organizations from other countries. Biden is arguing that it was no longer “rational” to continue to focus U.S. military power there. In an interview that aired Thursday on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Biden named Syria and East Africa as places where the Islamic State group posed a “significantly greater threat” than in Afghanistan. He says 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.”