AL-QAEDA 'BACK IN AFGHANISTAN'

Taliban rule has let terror groups rise up in country

- BEN GLAZE

TERRORISTS have returned to Afghanistan two years after Western forces quit the war-torn nation, Britain's former ambassador to the country warned.

Marking the second anniversary of the Taliban rampaging back to power in Kabul, Sir Laurie Bristow yesterday raised fears Afghanistan could again become a lair for extremists to plot attacks on the West.

Sir Laurie admitted that failing to build an Afghan regime that could repel a Taliban revival was "a foreign policy failure".

He said: "There was no shortage of resources put into Afghanistan primarily by the Americans, secondarily by the UK.

"But what they didn't produce was a state that was capable of standing on its own two feet.