WASHINGTON — American spy agencies have concluded in a new intelligence assessment that Al Qaeda has not reconstituted its presence in Afghanistan since the U.S. withdrawal last August and that only a handful of longtime Qaeda members remain in the country.

The terror group does not have the ability to launch attacks from the country against the United States, the assessment said. Instead, it said, Al Qaeda will rely on, at least for now, an array of loyal affiliates outside the region to carry out potential terrorist plots against the West.

But several counterterrorism analysts said the spy agencies’ judgments represented an optimistic snapshot of a complex and fast-moving terrorist landscape. The assessment, a declassified summary of which was provided to The New York Times, represents the consensus views of the U.S. intelligence agencies.

“The assessment is substantially accurate, but it’s also the most positive outlook on a threat picture that is still quite fluid,” said Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former top U.N. counterterrorism official.

The assessment was prepared after Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s top leader, was killed in a C.I.A. drone strike in Kabul last month. The death of al-Zawahri, one of the world’s most wanted terrorist leaders, after a decades-long manhunt was a major victory for President Biden, but it raised immediate questions about al-Zawahri’s presence in Afghanistan a year after Mr. Biden withdrew all American forces, clearing the way for the Taliban to regain control of the country.

Republicans have said that the president’s pullout has endangered the United States. The fact the Qaeda leader felt safe enough to return to the Afghan capital, they argue, was a sign of a failed policy that they predicted would allow Al Qaeda to rebuild training camps and plot attacks despite the Taliban’s pledge to deny the group a safe haven. Last October, a top Pentagon official said Al Qaeda could be able to regroup in Afghanistan and attack the United States in one to two years. 

Administration officials have pushed back on the most recent criticisms, noting a pledge Mr. Biden made when he announced al-Zawahri’s death.

“As President Biden has said, we will continue to remain vigilant, along with our partners, to defend our nation and ensure that Afghanistan never again becomes a safe haven for terrorism,” Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for the White House’s National Security Council, said in an email on Saturday.

Yet some outside counterterrorism specialists saw the new intelligence assessment as overly hopeful.

A U.N. report warned this spring that Al Qaeda had found “increased freedom of action” in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power. The report noted that a number of Qaeda leaders were possibly living in Kabul and that the uptick in public statements by al-Zawahri suggested that he was able to lead more effectively after the Taliban seized power.

“This seems like an overly rosy assessment to the point of being slightly myopic,”.