Washington. August 21. INTERFAX-US President Joe Biden and Pentagon spokesman John Kirby disagreed about the presence of Al-Qaeda (banned in the Russian Federation) in Afghanistan, which drew the attention of the world media.
Biden on Friday, once again defending the correctness of his decision to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan, said that the United States had fulfilled its Afghan mission by eliminating Al-Qaeda.
"Look, let's put this in perspective. What is our interest in Afghanistan at the moment, when Al-Qaeda is no more? We went to Afghanistan with the clear goal of getting rid of Al-Qaeda and also to get Osama bin Laden. And we did it, " the president said.
At the same time, Kirby, after Biden's speech, told reporters that Al-Qaeda is still present in Afghanistan.
"We know that Al-Qaeda, like ISIS (banned in the Russian Federation - IF), is present in Afghanistan, and we have been talking about this for quite a long time," he said.
According to him, the United States does not believe that the number of Al-Qaeda terrorists in the country is "prohibitively large, although we do not have accurate data," justifying this by the fact that the Pentagon "has the ability to collect intelligence in Afghanistan is not what it used to be."
