Yesterday Once More

Saanika Raina

// Global Terrorism Returns to Afghanistan After 20 Years //

In Urdu, the language spoken in the badlands of Pakistan on its border with Afghanistan, the word kal means both yesterday and tomorrow. It might as well signify Afghanistan’s reemergence as a base for global terrorists under the Taliban, just as it was before 9/11.

With the withdrawal of the US forces and the Taliban back in charge, the world is witnessing the return of global terrorist groups to Afghanistan. Jidhadist groups such as Al Qaeda and the Haqqanis have taken power within the Taliban government. Many of the Taliban and Al Qaeda’s foot soldiers are students of the Haqqani madrassa, from which the group gets its name. Due to the deterioration of security in Afghanistan, Islamic terrorist groups have the opportunity to reconstitute in ungovernable spaces. Furthermore, the impending battle for jihadist recruits between the Taliban and ISIS-K will lead to increased radicalization of young men and an influx of young jihadists into Afghanistan. 

The Taliban government includes members of their most extremist branch, the Pakistani-based Haqqani network, sending the message that international jihad continues to be a key piece of their agenda. The Taliban and the Al-Qaeda network have also been closely intertwined, with the Haqqanis serving as liaison between them. The fact that Al Qaeda members and senior Taliban leaders have been found sheltering in Pakistan is evidence of this close relationship. 

The US has been battling these groups for the past two decades, only to see a recent increase in jihadist presence in Afghanistan. Sirajuddin Haqqani, who has been on the FBI’s Most Wanted list and is a United Nations designated global terrorist, has become Afghanistan’s interior minister, which allows him to control the police and security agencies. The Haqqanis were responsible for suicide bombings in Afghanistan that killed and injured thousands of American, coalition and Afghani soldiers, including one at the Serena Hotel in Kabul in 2008 and a 20 hour siege at the US embassy compound in 2011 that left 16 Afghans dead. 

The Taliban is opposed by the Afghan arm of ISIS known as ISIS-K, a cross-border Islamic group that believes that the Taliban is not sufficiently hardline and has abandoned Islam in favor of Afghan nationalism. ISIS-K announced a war against the Taliban and “their US masters” after the Taliban reached an agreement with the US for a withdrawal in early 2020. ISIS-K has flourished in parts of Afghanistan where the locals resent the Taliban and where the Taliban does not have a strong presence. The recent suicide bombing at the Kabul airport that killed 170 Afghan civilians and 13 US Service members was executed by ISIS-K and meant to demonstrate their savagery and attract more recruits. Both the Taliban and ISIS-K are competing to recruit jihadists and build alliances with other regional and international terror groups. This will lead to both groups welcoming and collaborating with international terrorist groups like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and Al-Shabab to bolster their ranks.

The competition for recruits and the availability of ungovernable spaces in Afghanistan due to the collapse of the Western-allied Afghan government is again starting an influx of aspiring jihadists from around the world. These terrorists, far from the eyes of coalition security forces, will train unhindered in Afghanistan, gain combat experience, and then scatter around the world; this would be disconcertingly similar to what transpired in the late 1990’s. From 1996-2001, between 10,000 and 12,000 recruits came to Afghanistan to camps called “university of terror,” run by Al Qaeda and other foreign jihadists. After training in these camps, they went to fight in conflicts in Algeria, Somalia, Indonesia and other countries. According to a United Nations report, 8,000 to 10,000 fighters from Central Asia, North Caucasus of Russia, Pakistan and Western China have entered Afghanistan in recent months to join either the Taliban, Al Qaeda, or ISIS-K. Ali Mohammad Ali, a former Afghan security official, states that “Afghanistan has now become the Las Vegas of the terrorists, of the radicals and the extremists.”

The chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has again created a security vacuum that is rapidly being filled by various global jihadists. While the new Taliban regime opposes groups with competing beliefs like ISIS-K, it is ideologically aligned with most other groups and is likely to turn a blind eye to their activity. This has the potential to create a serious crisis in the years to come, one which ironically may require the U.S. to go back into Afghanistan. The best short term strategy for the U.S. may be the containment of the Taliban regime through cooperation with regional countries and robust, over-the-horizon counterterrorism capabilities.  

Taliban fighters in the Afghan Presidential Palace in Kabul, Afghanistan. 
ISIS-K fighters in military training.