Pakistan using informal intelligence channels to prop up Taliban fight against ISIS

“There are shrinking options regarding countries on which the U.S. could rely for staging counterterrorism operations,” said Lisa Curtis, a former adviser on South Asia to the White House National Security Council and now director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. Currently, the bulk of the U.S. military assets available for a possible strike in Afghanistan remain in Qatar, some 1,200 miles away, making their use “expensive and risky,” she said.