Four U.S. Intelligence Agencies Produced Extensive Reports on Afghanistan, but All Failed to Predict Kabul’s Rapid Collapse

WASHINGTON—Leading U.S. intelligence companies failed to forecast the immediate Taliban takeover of Afghanistan prior to the closing withdrawal of American troops and alternatively provided scattershot assessments of the keeping power of the Afghan military services and governing administration, a evaluation of huge-ranging summaries of categorized materials by The Wall Road Journal displays.

The approximately two dozen intelligence assessments from four distinctive companies have not been earlier claimed. The assessments charted Taliban improvements from spring 2020 by way of this July, forecasting that the group would continue to gain ground and that the U.S.-backed governing administration in Kabul was unlikely to endure absent U.S. assist.