Secretary of State Marco Rubio has warned that terrorist groups are exploiting ungoverned regions in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, challenging the Biden administration's claim that the United States can remotely monitor and eliminate terror threats.

"I wouldn't say it's the pre-9/11 landscape, but I think any time you have governing spaces that are contested, that you don't have a government that has full control of every part of their territory, it creates the opportunity for these groups," Rubio told interviewer Catherine Herridge on Thursday, according to a Voice of America report.

"The difference between today and 10 years ago is that we don't have American elements on the ground to target and go after them," Rubio added, referring to the Biden administration's 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan. During the abrupt withdrawal, widely considered one of the Biden administration's most significant foreign policy blunders, a suicide bomber killed 13 U.S. service members.

The Taliban quickly regained control of Afghanistan following the U.S. withdrawal, taking the Biden State Department by surprise. The administration nevertheless said that its "over-the-horizon" counterterrorism strategy allowed the United States to detect and neutralize terrorist threats without a physical presence in the country.

Even Biden administration officials were unsure about the strategy's effectiveness, however, with then-director of national intelligence Avril Haines in May 2023 confirming reports that the United States no longer had eyes on the ground in Afghanistan.

A U.N. report earlier this month corroborated Rubio's comments, noting that al Qaeda operatives are finding safe havens across Afghanistan.

"The Taliban maintained a permissive environment allowing Al-Qaida to consolidate, with the presence of safe houses and training camps scattered across Afghanistan," the report reads, adding that extremist groups have conducted strikes in Europe and are "actively seeking to recruit from among Central Asian states" bordering Afghanistan.

Rubio struck a similar note in the interview. The situation in the Middle East is "far more uncertain" than it used to be, the secretary of state said—"and it's not just limited to Afghanistan."