Afghanistan Becoming "A Failed State" Where Al Qaeda Will Thrive, Britain Warns

Afghanistan: The speed of the Taliban advance has shocked the Afghan government and its Western allies.

Afghanistan is spiralling into a failed state and a civil war in which groups such as al Qaeda will thrive and likely pose a threat again to the West, Britain's defence minister said on Friday. After a 20-year war in Afghanistan, the United States has withdrawn most of its troops, allowing Taliban forces to sweep across the country in what diplomats have cast as a humiliation for the world's preeminent superpower. "I'm absolutely worried that failed states are breeding grounds for those types of people," Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told Sky when asked about Afghanistan. "al Qaeda will probably come back." "Britain found that out in the 1830s, that it is a country led by warlords and led by different provinces and tribes, and you end up, if you're not very careful in a civil war, and I think we are heading towards a civil war," he told the BBC.