Pentagon Spox Dodges, Won’t Say How Many Al Qaeda Fighters Are in Afghanistan When Directly Asked

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said he does not know how many Al Qaeda fighters there are in Afghanistan.

During Friday’s press briefing at the Pentagon, Kirby was asked by Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin, “What is your current estimate for how many Al Qaeda are inside Afghanistan?”

“I haven’t seen an estimate on that,” responded Kirby. “I don’t know we have an exact estimate.”

Griffin asked if there are U.S. military estimates about how many Al Qaeda members are in Afghanistan.

“We know that Al Qaeda is a presence, as well as ISIS, in Afghanistan. And we’ve talked about that for quite some time. We do not believe it is exorbitantly high. But we don’t have an exact figure for you,” said Kirby. “As I think you might understand, Jen, it’s not like they carry identification cards and register somewhere. We don’t have a perfect picture. And our ability, our intelligence gathering ability, in Afghanistan isn’t what it used to be because we aren’t there with the same numbers that we used to be.”

Griffin countered and noted that President Joe Biden said in his speech on Afghanistan earlier Friday afternoon said that Al Qaeda has no presence in Afghanistan – an assertion that is incorrect.

Kirby said that the Biden administration doesn’t “believe is that there isn’t a presence that is significant enough to merit a threat to our homeland as there was back on 9/11, 20 years ago.”

Watch above, via CNN.