The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was based on the conclusion that terrorist groups would no longer be able to use the country to stage attacks on the United States.
“We went to Afghanistan almost 20 years ago with clear goals: get those who attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001, and make sure al-Qaeda could not use Afghanistan as a base from which to attack us again,” President Biden said in remarks from the White House this week, defending the pullout of American forces after the Afghan government’s swift collapse over the weekend.
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“We did that.”
But some experts aren’t so sure. While al-Qaeda has been substantially weakened since 2001 — and the Taliban has committed to preventing it from attacking the U.S. and its allies — the Taliban maintains ties to the group, and al-Qaeda fighters have hailed its takeover.
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The Islamic State, a more extreme rival, also retains a presence in Afghanistan. The Taliban is likely to try to root it out, experts said — but ISIS, too, could benefit from a security vacuum as the Taliban tries to consolidate power.
Here’s where the Islamic State and al-Qaeda stand in Afghanistan.
After Taliban triumph, Biden faces even greater test in preventing extremist resurgence in Afghanistan
What is al-Qaeda’s relationship to the Taliban, and how strong is the group?
The first time the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, from 1996 to 2001, it sheltered al-Qaeda militants who plotted the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. The U.S.-led coalition invaded Afghanistan in 2001 with the aim of crushing the extremist group.
After two decades of conflict and counterterrorism operations, “al-Qaeda in Afghanistan is a skeleton of its former self,” said Fawaz Gerges, professor at London School of Economics. He said that the group lacks charismatic leadership and is “starved financially.”
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A recent U.N. report said al-Qaeda maintained a presence in at least 15 Afghan provinces. An offshoot, al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, has operated “under the Taliban umbrella” from Kandahar, Helmand and Nimruz provinces, according to the United Nations. In total, al-Qaeda members are estimated to number between several dozen to 500 people.
Al-Qaeda showed “no indication of breaking ties” with the Taliban, a recent U.N. report said. Ideological alignment and personal relationships, including intermarriage, have kept the groups close.
Afghan analyst Abdul Sayed characterized the relationship as “cordial and stronger than in the pre-9/11 period.”
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Though the Taliban has “begun to tighten its control” over al-Qaeda, the U.N. said in the spring, “it is impossible to assess with confidence that the Taliban will live up to its commitment to suppress any future international threat emanating from Al-Qaida in Afghanistan.”
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What presence does the Islamic State have in Afghanistan?
The Islamic State in Khorasan began operating in Afghanistan in 2015, according to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
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Started by Pakistani national Hafiz Zaeed Khan, who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State’s former head Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2014, it began as a small band of mostly Pakistani militants operating in the eastern Afghanistan province of Nangahar. Some recruits came from the Taliban, though members of other extremist groups in the region also defected to the Khorasan group, according to the CSIS report.
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Like its parent group — the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — the Afghanistan offshoot has ambitions to hold territory and is known for carrying out brutal attacks on civilians. Shiites are particularly frequent targets.
U.N. Secretary General António Guterres warned in 2019 that after the Islamic State lost its territory in Iraq and Syria, its umbrella group in Afghanistan had access to hundreds of millions of dollars to finance terrorism.
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Islamic State in Khorasan has never successfully captured territory in Afghanistan. Instead, its strategy has centered on attacking civilian targets such as mosques, schools and weddings.
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The number of attacks it has carried out annually has decreased in recent years. During the first four months of this year, the U.N. recorded 77 attacks associated with the group. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the bombing of a girls’ school in Kabul in May that killed more than 85 people, mostly students.
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U.S. airstrikes took out key leaders of the Islamic State in Khorasan, including its founder, early on. And in 2017, the U.S. military dropped the “mother of all bombs” on a cave where fighters were hiding in Nangahar province.
Still, the affiliate group has managed to sustain itself. The U.N. estimates that it retains a core group of some 1,500 to 2,200 fighters in Konar and Nangahar provinces. Smaller cells are scattered across the country.
Taliban says it will be more tolerant toward women. Some fear otherwise.
What threats do the Islamic State and al-Qaeda pose in Afghanistan?
Most analysts agree that al-Qaeda lacks the strength and capability to pose an immediate threat to the United States. But given the chance that al-Qaeda will acquire a sanctuary under the Taliban — and the complications to counterterrorism operations that the Taliban victory poses — some say the group could later reconstitute itself.
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U.S. intelligence officials had previously said that would take up to two years. But Nathan Sales, who served as a senior counterterrorism official during the Trump administration, said that period could be around six months.
Much depends on how much leeway the Taliban gives the group.
Al-Qaeda is “fully following the Taliban’s instructions for supporting its strategies,” Sayed said, and supported the Taliban’s February 2020 deal with the U.S. for the withdrawal of U.S. and allied troops. That agreement obligated the Taliban to prevent al-Qaeda and other terrorists from using Afghanistan to attack the U.S. or its allies. The Taliban reiterated this week that it remains committed to that promise.
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“The Taliban will unlikely allow Al-Qaeda to operate from Afghanistan and endanger the survival of their nascent rule as the terrorist organization did in 2001,” Gerges said.
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Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the Wilson Center, said the ISIS offshoot in Afghanistan is “certainly resilient and potent” but is unlikely to have the capacity to plan attacks on faraway targets.
Afghanistan’s neighbors, however, are concerned about extremist activity. Russia has ramped up military exercises in Tajikistan, which shares a long border with Afghanistan, for fear of radical Islamist groups spilling over into its Central Asian ally.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, speaking to NBC Nightly News about the risks associated with evacuating Americans and Afghan allies from Kabul, said the U.S. was “very focused on … the potential for a terrorist attack by a group like ISIS-K.”
Russia sees potential cooperation with Taliban, but also prepares for the worst
Unlike its attitude toward al-Qaeda, the Taliban sees the Islamic State as an existential threat and has fought the group in Afghanistan for years.
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Some observers had worried that a peace agreement between the Taliban and the Afghan government could drive more extreme members of the Taliban to the Islamic State. After the Taliban’s military victory, that looks less likely.
Kugelman said the Taliban has “compelling reasons” to target the Islamic State, and could use newly acquired U.S.-made weapons to do so. Such a move could help the Taliban bolster its image in the eyes of foreign governments.
But as it begins to take up the levers of government, the Taliban may be distracted by more pressing priorities, experts say — and the Islamic State and other groups could take advantage of lapses in security. The U.N. has estimated that there are already between 8,000 and 10,000 fighters belonging to various militant groups in Afghanistan.
“The U.S. withdrawal is an increasingly galvanizing moment for these jihadist forces in Afghanistan and the broader region,” Kugelman said.
A desire to drive the U.S. out of the region has long been a focus of propaganda for radical Islamist groups, and Kugelman said the U.S. pullout may inspire militants from the surrounding region to plan local attacks or move to Afghanistan.
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There has already been excited chatter among sympathizers of extremist groups in the area: An intelligence official from an Arab nation told The Post that officials had seen an uptick in jihadist communications about developments in Afghanistan, and the Taliban takeover “is encouraging many jihadists to think about traveling to Afghanistan now instead of Syria or Iraq.”
One al-Qaeda fighter, who goes by the name Abu Khaled, hailed the Taliban’s victory as a turning point for extremist groups.
“God willing, the success of the Taliban will be also a chance to unify mujahideen movements like al-Qaeda and Daesh,” he said, using another name for the Islamic State.
Missy Ryan and Souad Mekhennet contributed to this report, which has been updated.