Regardless of the Taliban’s promises to keep foreign terrorist elements in check, its victory is already boosting elements within the jihadist movement and may once again spur foreign fighter traffic to Afghanistan.
The fall of Kabul raises a number of questions about the future of the jihadist movement, from the plans being pondered by global organizations like al-Qaeda (AQ) and the Islamic State (IS), to the reaction of local actors such as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Syrian group that views the Taliban as a model. Answering these questions can help policymakers better understand where the current situation stands and how the environment could change going forward.
Taliban fighters advanced deep into the last holdout province of Panjshir Sunday, as the top US general warned Afghanistan faces a wider civil war that would offer fertile ground for a resurgence of terrorism.
Following their lightning fast rout of Afghanistan’s army last month — and celebrations when the last US troops flew out after 20 years of war on Monday — the Taliban are seeking to crush resistance forces defending the mountainous Panjshir Valley.
Ten years into Syria’s war, a large patch of territory in the country’s northwest controlled by jihadists and allied rebels is still holding out against the Damascus regime.
Can the Idlib bastion, protected against a military onslaught since a March 2020 ceasefire, continue to survive as its own self-run territory, perhaps a bit like the Palestinian Gaza Strip?
On Thursday, Turkish-backed Syrian factions intensified their artillery and missile attacks on the positions of Damascus government forces in the Idleb and Hama countryside, while the Syrian government bombed the opposition-held areas.
Meanwhile, sources from Fateh al-Mubin Operations Room, which includes Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and other armed groups, bombed government forces’ positions east of Idleb.
The new defense minister of Iran pledged that his ministry will do its utmost to boost the capabilities of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps.
In a meeting with IRGC Commander Major General Hossein Salami in Tehran on Saturday, Defense Minister Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Ashtiani reaffirmed the Defense Ministry’s full support for all armed forces of the country.
Highlighting the need for a revolutionary approach in the military sector coupled with the continuation of the previous efforts, the general said the Defense Ministry will employ all of its capacities to deepen and boost the defense capabilities and fulfill the needs of the armed forces, specifically the IRGC, including by supplying modern and strategic systems and equipment.
Brigadier General Ashtiani stressed that coordination, synergy and convergence among Iranian military units will ensure the fulfillment of the strategic needs of the armed forces and strengthening of the defense power.
“Creating up-to-date defense capacities proportional to the future threats and the developments ahead is a strategy of the Armed Forces and will continue to grow by God’s grace,” the minister added.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei has stressed the need for the simultaneous reinforcement of operational military capabilities and spiritual motives of the Armed Forces.
The commander-in-chief of the Iranian military forces has also praised the Armed Forces for employing a combination of military effectiveness and spiritual motivations, urging an incessant push to strengthen those capabilities.
The Armed Forces belong not to a specific individual or faction, but to the nation and country, protecting the national security, Ayatollah Khamenei said in April 2016.
The Taliban claimed Saturday that their forces had seized several districts in the northern Panjshir Valley, the last remaining province in Afghanistan holding out against the Islamist group.
Taliban officials said that overnight advances had brought several days of fighting to Anaba, an area close to the provincial capital, Bazarak.
The Indian government has been faced with a strange dilemma since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan.
On Aug. 31, within hours of US forces departing the war-torn nation, India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) announced that its envoy to Qatar, Deepak Mittal, had met with the head of the Taliban’s political office, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai.
Turkey has risen to the world’s top three in combat drone technology, the Turkish president said on Sunday, reports Anadolu Agency.
“With our unmanned combat aerial vehicle Akinci, Turkey has become one of the three most advanced countries in the world in this technology,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at the delivery ceremony for the Bayraktar Akinci combat drone in the northwestern Tekirdag province.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett will today call on the US President Joe Biden not to withdraw American forces from Iraq and Syria, Israeli media reported.
Bennett was scheduled to meet with Biden yesterday on his first visit to the White House as prime minister, but the meeting was postponed after an explosion at Kabul airport, Afghanistan, killed ten US service members.
Israeli intelligence officials met privately this month with the son of Libya’s top warlord to discuss his 2021 presidential candidacy, a signal that Israel is supporting his bid, a source familiar with the meeting told the Washington Free Beacon.
Saddam Haftar has been quietly seeking Western backing for his campaign, which is expected to pit him against Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, the son of former strongman Muammar Qaddafi. Haftar is seen as a proxy for his father Khalifa Haftar, a dual U.S.-Libyan citizen and commander of the Libyan National Army.
