Afghanistan is in a “disastrous” situation after the Taliban allowed al-Qaeda to return and Islamic State to be “very dangerous”, according to a former US commander in the country.
General David Petraeus said that in the year since western forces left its society had gone more than a thousand years backwards in some respects, with the new regime imposing an “ultra-conservative” vision of Islam.
In an interview with Times Radio, he also said that the West had left behind hundreds of thousands of people whose security was jeopardised because of their service in the Afghan government or work alongside western troops.
“I think it is still a tragic, heartbreaking and, frankly, disastrous situation,” he said. “Clearly the Taliban have allowed al-Qaeda to return. The Islamic
