Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Milley says terrorist groups could regroup in Afghanistan sooner than he thought

As a result of the rapidly deteriorating situation in Kabul, Afghanistan, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told Senators in a call Sunday that the timeline of how quickly terrorist groups would likely reconstitute in Afghanistan has accelerated.

On the Sunday call between top Biden officials and senators, Senator Lindsey Graham asked Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Milley "whether, in light of recent events, they will revise an assessment to Congress in June of a 'medium' risk of terrorist groups reconstituting in Afghanistan within two years," reported Axios.

"Milley responded 'yes' — that he would have to assume that timeline would get moved up and that he would be happy to brief senators in a classified setting," Axios continued.

A source on the call told Axios that there is no real way to evacuate more than 20,000 Afghans looking to escape the country by August 31.

With many of those looking to get out of the country not being located in Kabul already, the source said "if you're not in Kabul now, how do you get to Kabul?"

The source said that they had two takeaways from the call: "We're gonna leave tens of thousands of people behind ... and the timeline in terms of threats has accelerated."

Contributing to the now accelerated timeline is the mass releasing of hundreds of prisoners from their confinements by Taliban soldiers, with the Taliban claiming that it freed many high value detainees from Bagram Air Base, where many members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda were being held.

Videos posted to twitter show the newly freed prisoners leaving their cells.

Milley was recently in the spotlight for his defense of the teaching of critical race theory in the US Armed Forces. He stated that the military were learning about it to gain "situational understanding about the country for which we are here to defend."

"But I do think it's important, actually, for those of us in uniform, to be open minded and be widely read in the United States Military Academy is a university. And it is important that we train, and we understand," said Milley responding to a request from Representative Chrissy Houlahan to comment on the issue during a House Armed Services Committee in June.

In regards to the Capitol riot on January 6, Milley further stated "I want to understand white rage, and I'm white, and I want to understand it. So what is it that cause thousands of people to assault this building, and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America? What caused that? I want to find that out."

He said he found it "offensive" that people were accusing military personnel of being "woke… because we're studying some theories that are out there"