Abstract: President Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan depended on a critical assessment of the terrorism landscape in Afghanistan. At the time of his decision, he argued that the terrorism threat from Afghanistan was both low and manageable for the foreseeable future. This article argues that the Biden administration’s assessment of the terrorism threat was flawed, and with the Taliban’s return to power, the threat is growing. Afghanistan’s dynamic terrorism landscape is dotted by the significant presence of al-Qa`ida and its local units, the Islamic State in Afghanistan, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, Central Asian jihadis, anti-India jihadis, and anti-China jihadis. Part of this landscape benefits from the Taliban’s support to a number of groups in the country, as well as the ties of some of the groups with each other. The perception of the Afghan Taliban’s total takeover of the country amid a humiliating U.S. withdrawal is iconic for jihadis, and it is likely to substantially bolster their morale and strength. Contrary to claims of the Biden administration, U.S. counterterrorism capacity in the region is likely to remain weak for the foreseeable future. Twenty years after the 9/11 attacks, the terrorism threat from Afghanistan endures for the United States and the rest of the world.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Idlib demanded all the tribes in the areas it controls to coordinate with it to form separate Shura councils, with the aim of controlling the decisions taken by these tribes and expanding its popular base.
During its inauguration conference Aug. 28, the Arab Bakara tribe announced the establishment of a Shura Council in Syria’s northwestern city of Idlib, which is under the control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
On September 7, 2021, hundreds of Afghans – most of whom were women defying the Taliban jihadis patrolling public life in Afghanistan – turned out in the streets of Kabul chanting anti-Pakistan, anti-Taliban slogans. Some of the slogans raised by the protesters included: “Pakistan, Pakistan, Leave Afghanistan” and “Freedom, Freedom.”[1] The women protesters – chanting “Death to Pakistan,” “Allah-o-Akbar,” “Freedom,” and “We do not want captivity” – demanded the closure of the Pakistan Embassy in Kabul.[2] The first of these protests was led by a group of Afghan women who demonstrated in front of the Pakistan Embassy in Kabul and were joined by men, according to an Afghan media report.[3]
Tahrir al-Sham’s (HTS) leader, Abu Mohammed al-Joulani, reiterates the extremist ideology that forms the basis for his organization, which appears on international terrorism lists.
HTS’ reliance on a core group comprising terrorists from countries outside Syria is in no way true, according to observers of the group’s activity.
With the help of China, the Taliban will fight for an economic comeback in Afghanistan, Zabihullah Mujahid tells Italian newspaper.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has told an Italian newspaper that the group will rely primarily on financing from China following the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan and its takeover of the country.
In his interview published by La Repubblica on Thursday, Mujahid said the Taliban will fight for an economic comeback with the help of China.
The Taliban seized control of Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, on August 15 as the country’s Western-backed government melted away, bringing an end to 20 years of war amid fears of an economic collapse and widespread hunger.
Following the chaotic departure of foreign troops from Kabul airport in recent weeks, Western states have severely restricted their aid payments to Afghanistan.
“China is our most important partner and represents a fundamental and extraordinary opportunity for us, because it is ready to invest and rebuild our country,” the Taliban spokesperson was quoted as saying in the interview.
He said the New Silk Road – an infrastructure initiative with which China wants to increase its global influence by opening up trade routes – was held in high regard by the Taliban.
There are “rich copper mines in the country, which, thanks to the Chinese, can be put back into operation and modernised. In addition, China is our pass to markets all over the world.”
Mujahid also confirmed that women would be allowed to continue studying at universities in future. He said women would be able to work as nurses, in the police or as assistants in ministries, but ruled out that there would be female ministers.
Andrew Small, senior transatlantic fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States Asia programme, said China’s engagement in Afghanistan would be dependent on political stability.
“China doesn’t do large scale aid; it will provide aid in modest terms, it will provide humanitarian assistance and it’s not going to bail out a new government,” he told Al Jazeera.
“It might do some smaller scale investments but those longer term investments will depend on there being enough stability in the country and enough security in the country for these to turn into something that’s economically viable,” he added.
“So there’s still some limitations to what Cina’s going to be willing to do economically, even if it continues to be happy and the Taliban are keen to be able to send these signals that China’s willing to swing in on scale.”
Afghanistan desperately needs money, and the Taliban is unlikely to get swift access to the roughly $10bn in assets here mostly held abroad by the Afghan central bank.
Earlier this week, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres warned of a looming “humanitarian catastrophe” in Afghanistan and urged countries to provide emergency funding as severe drought and war have forced thousands of families to flee their homes.
Guterres expressed his “grave concern at the deepening humanitarian and economic crisis in the country”, adding that basic services threatened to collapse “completely”.
“Now more than ever, Afghan children, women and men need the support and solidarity of the international community,” he said in a statement on Tuesday as he pleaded for financial support from nations.
“I urge all member states to dig deep for the people of Afghanistan in their darkest hour of need. I urge them to provide timely, flexible and comprehensive funding,” the UN secretary-general said.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the current $1.3bn UN humanitarian appeal for Afghanistan is only 39 percent funded.
The Islamic State, al-Qaeda-linked groups, Boko Haram and other extremist movements are protagonists in today’s deadliest crises, complicating efforts to end them. They have exploited wars, state collapse and geopolitical upheaval in the Middle East, gained new footholds in Africa and pose an evolving threat elsewhere. Reversing their gains requires avoiding the mistakes that enabled their rise.
Executive Summary
The Islamic State (IS), al-Qaeda-linked groups, Boko Haram and other extremist movements are protagonists in today’s deadliest crises, complicating efforts to end them. They have exploited wars, state collapse and geopolitical upheaval in the Middle East, gained new footholds in Africa and pose an evolving threat elsewhere. Reversing their gains requires avoiding the mistakes that enabled their rise. This means distinguishing between groups with different goals; using force more judiciously; ousting militants only with a viable plan for what comes next; and looking to open lines of communication, even with hardliners. Vital, too, is to de-escalate the crises they feed off and prevent others erupting, by nudging leaders toward dialogue, inclusion and reform and reacting sensibly to terrorist attacks. Most important is that action against “violent extremism” not distract from or deepen graver threats, notably escalating major- and regional-power rivalries.
The Syrian opposition fears the cross-border humanitarian aid mechanism will be replaced by cross-line aid deliveries amid accusations leveled at Hayat Tahrir al-Sham of trying to normalize ties with the Syrian regime and its allies.
The entry of humanitarian aid into Idlib via the Miznaz-Maarat al-Naasan crossing, which marks the frontier between territories held by the Syrian regime and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) areas in the northwest of Syria, sparked widespread controversy among the opposition’s popular quarters. The move triggered fear of the cross-border humanitarian aid mechanism being replaced by cross-line aid deliveries. The opposition even accused HTS of betrayal and complicity with the regime and its allies for harming the revolution.
The Syrian Demographic Forces moved 300 families of extremist women from al-Hol camp to Roj camp in Hasakah countryside, to confine them to one camp and control security in al-Hol camp.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) began transferring 300 families of extremist women and wives of Islamic State (IS) members, Syria 24 reported.
The Russian-brokered cease-fire agreement is evidence of Moscow’s complex positioning in southwest Syria.
On the evening of Tuesday, Aug. 31, a cease-fire agreement was reached between the so-called “reconciled rebels” in the rebel-held city of Daraa al-Balad and the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The agreement provides for government forces to lift the monthslong siege on the city, which in recent days has been attacked and shelled by Assad’s forces in an attempt to take control of it.
The terms of the agreement allow the Russian military police and a security committee linked to the Syrian regime to travel to the area to consolidate the cease-fire.
At the same time, the new demands of the Assad regime, put forward on Friday, Sept. 3, which may have been put forward under pressure from Iran, may again aggravate the situation.
Representatives of the regime demanded the complete surrender of weapons, the establishment of security checkpoints in residential areas and a mass search of houses. The opposition has rejected these conditions and insists on the evacuation of the settlement to Turkey or Jordan.
Nevertheless, it can be assumed that Russia will continue its efforts to preserve the status quo, since for Moscow this is also largely a matter of prestige.
Following a military operation in the country’s southwest against local opposition groups in the summer of 2018, Russia agreed to grant these rebels, mainly from the Southern Front, a special status. Agreements that the armed opposition units could remain and would not be completely disarmed were reached — even before the start of the 2018 offensive — during consultations with the participation of Russian, American, Jordanian and Israeli diplomats in Amman. The presence of opposition forces in this region, albeit in a reduced format, created a kind of buffer zone along the border with Israel and Jordan. The decisive word in the management of this region began to belong not to Damascus or its Iranian allies, but to Russia, which did not allow the deployment of Iranian proxy forces along the borders with Israel.
Russia was able to implement this decision and defend it before Damascus, despite serious opposition from the Assad regime. Subsequently, the Syrian authorities have repeatedly tried to regain control of these areas in order to then transfer them to pro-Iranian formations, but each time this was prevented by Russia. Therefore, over the past three years the position of these rebel-held enclaves has practically remained unchanged.
According to the latest agreement, not only the Syrian flag but also the Russian flag was raised over the city. Also in Daraa al-Balad, while regime security offices reopened and other government agencies will resume, Russian police will also be present and monitor their activities.
In addition, the forces of the 8th brigade of the 5th assault corps, formed by Russia from among the reconciled rebels, entered this enclave along with the Russian military. This is of particular importance, since this brigade, which has the unofficial name Liwa Usud al-Harb, is only formally linked to the Syrian armed forces. Representatives of the Damascus government have called it a “bandit formation” and expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that Russia was creating such units from Syrian opposition fighters. The brigade repeatedly came into conflict with government forces, preventing them from entering the areas of its control and not allowing repression and cleansing there. Also, fighters of the 8th brigade participated in attacks in May of this year on the offices of the security services, where they freed detainees.
At the same time, although Moscow managed to impose its own agenda in the end, the current agreements with Damascus were not easy to come by.
On the one hand, Assad put pressure on the Russian command about the need to continue military operations in Idlib. However, for the Russian military the beginning of new military campaigns — whether in the Syrian northwest or northeast — is extremely risky due to the threat of a direct military clash with Turkey or the United States, whose armed forces are present in these regions.
Then Damascus tried to transfer operations to the south of Syria in order to demonstrate that it does not intend to interrupt the “liberation of Syria to the last inch” campaign that was proclaimed by Assad. But here, too, the Syrian regime could not find Russian support. The Russian military did not help government forces to launch an offensive against Daraa al-Balad. On the contrary, each time Moscow tried to force the parties to sit down at the negotiating table.
At the same time, Assad also had personal motives to retake control of these enclaves in the south of the country since their residents refused to participate in his re-election in May 2021 or to open polling stations. This, of course, greatly complicated Moscow’s argument in support of preserving the special status for these areas.
Yet while settlements controlled by the 8th brigade (where elections were also not held) were under the direct protection of Russia, for others whose status was not fully settled — including Daraa al-Balad — Russian security guarantees in full were not distributed. These other areas were targeted for attacks by Bashar’s brother and the commander of the 4th division of the Syrian army, Maher al-Assad, in June of this year.
Moscow’s intransigence to Damascus was also affected by the need for the Kremlin to demonstrate its ability to be faithful to its obligations to other countries in the region — namely Jordan and Israel. Therefore, for Russia it was also a matter of prestige.
In this context, an important role was played by the visit of Jordanian King Abdullah II to Moscow on Aug. 23 and his meeting with President Vladimir Putin, where one of the main topics of discussion was the situation in Daraa al-Balad. Some sources claim that following the summit talks, Russia and Jordan agreed on the need to resolve the conflict between the southerners and government forces trying to pacify them, primarily by resolving the humanitarian crisis. According to this information, Amman is ready to provide appropriate economic assistance to the areas that formally returned to the control of Damascus in 2018 but actually retained their autonomy.
Moreover, Moscow would not want to risk its relations with Israel. Russia faces uncertainty about how to build interaction with the new Israeli government. In the event that the regions of southern Syria are transferred under the full control of Assad, pro-Iranian formations will immediately appear, which in fact are the real force behind the operation in Daraa. This will lead to a new aggravation in the region and attacks by the IDF on the positions of pro-Iranian forces near their borders. Russia, of course, would not like to open a new page in relations with Israel on this note.
Salafi-jihadi groups in Turkey and neighboring Syria may look for inspiration from the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, but their prospects appear rather limited at present.
The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan has raised complex questions over the future of Salafi-jihadi movements, including in Turkey and neighboring Syria where the threat from such groups has been largely contained. Whether the risks heighten down the road will depend largely on how the Taliban shape their relationship with jihadi groups in Afghanistan.
