“Since then [9/11] al-Qaeda has had some significant setbacks; Afghan manpower and American firepower brought about the defeat of the Taliban, and Afghanistan is now run by Hamid Karzai’s largely pro-Western government. This is significant because it means that al-Qaeda no longer has an entire country to use as its headquarters. Indeed al-Qaeda became so important in Taliban-run Afghanistan that it was more like a ‘country sponsored by terrorists as opposed to a state that sponsored terrorism’ according to Zalmay Khalilzad [in his speech at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies on February 18, 2002], the Afghan-American who is leading the U.S. government’s efforts to rebuild the shattered country.”
– Peter Bergen, Holy War, Inc., Pages 239, 291