On Monday’s edition of CBS’s “Prime Time,” CBS News Senior National Security Contributor, Michael Morell who served as acting and Deputy Director of the CIA under President Barack Obama said that the ISIS-K terror group is “very capable” and “it’s safe to say that ISIS-K is today is much stronger than it was when we walked out of Afghanistan in [2021].”
Host John Dickerson said, “How should our viewers think about ISIS-K and ISIS and the way it’s evolved and morphed from — maybe the last some people checked in, they were thinking about it in Iraq. So, help us understand where ISIS is and where ISIS-K fits in.”
Morell responded, “When ISIS became a significant group in Iraq and Syria in 2013, 2014, they inspired groups in the rest of the world. And one of those places was in Afghanistan. So, remnants of the Taliban, remnants of some Pakistani terrorist group came together as ISIS-K.”
Morell continued that the group “is now, I think, the strongest ISIS group in the world. They are very capable. They conducted an attack in Iran in early January, this attack now, very large, very capable. I think it’s safe to say that ISIS-K is today is much stronger than it was when we walked out of Afghanistan in [2021].”
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