The United States has publicly announced one drone strike within Afghanistan in the two years since its military withdrawal, further raising questions about the Biden administration's assurance that it could maintain counterterrorism operations without boots on the ground.

President Joe Biden fulfilled a campaign promise in August 2021 to end the war in Afghanistan but the U.S. left with the Taliban back in charge of the country, just like 20 years earlier when then-President George W. Bush ordered U.S. troops to invade following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

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Biden's administration maintained and still believes it has the ability to carry out its counterterrorism strategy via its over-the-horizon capabilities, which are the military or intelligence community's ability to monitor certain areas via aircraft and other means without having boots physically present there.

"Fast forward, having left two years ago, we've done one drone strike. So having previously been able, because we had people on the ground to help with targeting ensuring we don't have unnecessary collateral damage and provide battle damage assessment," retired Col. John Barranco, a U.S. Marine Corps fellow at the Atlantic Council, told the Washington Examiner. "I think the contrast in the numbers narrative is pretty telling what a difference it makes to be there present on the ground versus where we are now."

Since the U.S. withdrawal two years ago, the only strike the U.S. has launched into Afghanistan targeted Ayman Al Zawahiri, the successor of Osama bin Laden in al-Qaeda’s leadership.

"The short answer to your question is yes, we do maintain over-the-horizon capability and we'll take appropriate measures as necessary when it comes to safeguarding our homeland and protecting our national interests," Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters on Thursday in response to a question about whether the U.S. can still conduct over-the-horizon strikes.

Without boots on the ground, U.S. forces are reliant on overhead capabilities as they attempt to conduct counterterrorism missions from afar, whereas when troops are in the country "you have a lot of different resources to kind of tell you what's happening out there from a variety of perspectives that allows you not only to learn what's happening but to kind of confirm it and define it in much greater detail," former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who served under the previous administration, told the Washington Examiner in an interview.

U.S. Central Command chief Gen. Michael "Erik" Kurilla told lawmakers in March 2023 that the U.S. had conducted the strike against Zawahiri and carried out two non-kinetic operations involving more than five combatant commanders, though he did not provide details.

"It is difficult right now, as I said in my confirmation hearing. It's difficult but not impossible," he said. "One of the things that we are trying to do is increase our intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance over that. We're putting investment into long-duration high-altitude, alternative airborne ISR that can go up for days and weeks."

Kurilla also explained at the hearing that in his commander's estimate, ISIS-K, the Afghanistan branch of the Islamic State, will have the ability to launch attacks against U.S. interests outside of Afghanistan in less than six months "with little to no warning."

While the administration touted the Zawahiri strike as evidence of its reach sans troops on the ground, his location, an upscale neighborhood in Kabul, indicated he was staying there with the knowledge and permission of the Taliban.

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"When we were in Afghanistan, the leadership of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden went to Pakistan because Afghanistan wasn't a friendly place anymore for him. And now when you have the former number two, and then the leader of al Qaeda, Zawahiri, back in Afghanistan. That in the Taliban's rule would indicate to me, there are probably a lot more members of al Qaeda in Afghanistan," Barranco added.

He noted that leaving Afghanistan made U.S. military personnel safer because they’re no longer in that environment but it left “Americans overseas in Europe or in the Middle East, here in the continental United States … at more risk than we were.”