Afghanistan Times
Related Articles
AT News
KABUL: British intelligence service MI6 chief Richard Moore has denied the fall of Afghan capital Kabul was an intelligence failure.
In his first live broadcast interview, he admitted the assessment of the Taliban’s progress in Afghanistan was “clearly wrong”, but denied Kabul’s fall was an intelligence failure.
“The assessment of the speed at which the Taliban would seize control of Kabul as British and American troops withdrew from Afghanistan was clearly wrong, Moore admitted.
But he said it was “really overblown to describe it in terms of intelligence failure”. “None of us predicted the speed of the fall of Kabul,” he said.
“Frankly, if we had recruited every member of the Taliban Shura, you know, the leadership group of the Taliban, [if] we recruited every one of them as a secret agent, we still wouldn’t have predicted the fall of Kabul because the Taliban didn’t.”
However, he added that there is no “soft soaping” that the victory of the Taliban had been a “serious reverse” and he is concerned it will be a “morale boost for extremists around the world, and indeed for those sitting in the capitals in Beijing, Tehran, and Moscow”.
