Taliban’s Reliance on Terror Nexus is No Longer Just a Suspicion

The Taliban, since coming to power, have been under heavy international scrutiny, and for all the right reasons. The Acting UN Under-Secretary-General for Counter-Terrorism Alexander Zuyev has now confirmed what observers suspected for a while: that the Taliban maintain a nexus with Al-Qaeda and other terror groups. According to the report, al-Qaeda has maintained a strong presence in Afghanistan and links with the Afghan government. Terror groups like TTP, ISIS-K, and ETIM also enjoy safe haven under the Afghan regime.

Most of these groups have transnational ambitions. This shows Afghanistan’s internal security challenges are creating huge consequences far beyond its borders and making regional peace and stability difficult.

Despite the return of the Taliban government, the attacks carried out by ISIS-K, such as the attack on the concert hall in Moscow in 2024, and subsequent attacks on civilians and infrastructure, demonstrate that the group retains significant operational capabilities.

Similarly, TTP is a continuous threat to the national security of Pakistan, engaging security forces and multiple anti-terrorist operations. These actions are creating problems for regional cooperation regarding peace and economic development.

These facts raise questions about the effectiveness of the regional and international counter-terrorism efforts. The Doha agreement of 2020 emphasized that with the return of the Taliban, the land of Afghanistan will not be used by other terrorist groups, which breaches the national security of neighboring states.

However, five years after the agreement was signed, multiple assessments by international organizations prove that this very objective remains unfulfilled. Not only that, it has actually reversed years of anti-terror progress made by regional countries with the Taliban in power. TTP attacks Pakistan, ISIS-K targets Iran, Russia, Central Asian countries, ETIM continues to plot against China’s Xinjiang. All these nations have been fighting terrorism for years, making substantial progress that Afghanistan now threatens. As long as these groups operate through Afghan territory, regional security situation will continue to be unstable.

Moreover, Afghanistan’s current and future bilateral relations heavily depend on how it manages its internal security situation. Projects such as the Trans-Afghan railway and the TAPI gas pipeline are important for domestic and economic growth in Afghanistan, and could also improve relations through effective diplomacy. However, as Afghanistan has failed to manage transnational terrorist activity, such initiatives are becoming harder to pursue.

When al-Qaeda and other organizations such as TTP are operating within the government and participating in policy decisions, pursuing diplomatic engagements cannot be fruitful. Afghanistan’s isolation is in these groups’ interest. They thrive in environments where they cannot be monitored, and they obviously don’t want to be engaged with in any political way. Although it hurts the interests of the Afghan people and the common people, the Taliban have been more willing to sacrifice them in pursuit of securing their terror nexus.

The political control of Taliban over Afghanistan, and their projection of internal unity is not sufficient for its neighbors as insurance. They demand measurable, valid, and verifiable action from the Taliban against these terror groups. And Taliban’s constant inability to do so despite their consolidation of political control points to their lack of will, at best. At worse, as already suggested by the UN report, it means that the Taliban are actually in cahoots with these groups and rely on their support to maintain said control.

Regional stability requires coordinated counterterrorism measures. Yet as long as Taliban remain embedded in a terror nexus, any kind of engagement with them would be a risk to the region in particular, and also to the world at large. The UN counterterrorism office has just confirmed what regional governments have long suspected, and the time is right to devise new regional and international strategy against these groups enjoying patronage in Afghanistan.