South East Asia

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.

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.

Three people were killed and 20 others wounded in a suicide attack on a security checkpoint in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province on Sunday.

The suicide bombing targeted a Frontier Constabulary check-post on the Mastung road in Quetta, the provincial capital, a senior police officer said.

Lt Gen Faiz Hameed, the director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s spy agency, arrived in Kabul on Saturday for talks with the Taliban regarding matters related to the safe evacuation of foreign nationals, border management and security in the region, sources said.

Geo News reported that Hameed will also meet with Pakistan’s Ambassador to Afghanistan Mansoor Ahmed Khan and his team on issues of repatriation and transit through Pakistan and the situation on the border.

Kosovo has agreed to take in Afghanistan evacuees who fail to clear initial rounds of screening and host them for up to a year, a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity Saturday.

The U.S. Embassy in Kosovo said later in a statement that the arrangement did not mean Kosovo was taking evacuees who had been deemed ineligible for admission to the United States.

Indian External Affairs (Foreign) Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar presided over a UN Security Council meeting last week focused on threats posed by ISIL.

Davood Moradian, Director General of the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies, briefed the UNSC and accused the Islamic world of being passive observers.

Iran is engaging Taliban leaders following their takeover in Afghanistan, hoping for stability and an end to the flow of Afghan refugees into Iran.

Tehran is heralding a U.S. humiliation and the U.S. military withdrawal, which has led to the removal of American forces from near its eastern border.

In March, I travelled to Afghanistan and the Middle East with General Kenneth (Frank) McKenzie, Jr., the Alabama-born marine who heads Central Command. He has been overseeing the frantic evacuation out of Kabul. During one of several interviews aboard his plane, I asked him, “Do you really think, given the intermarriage, the interweaving of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, that the Taliban is really ever going to be able or willing to restrain Al Qaeda from doing anything against us?” By then, the Taliban held roughly half of Afghanistan, a country about the size of Texas. McKenzie was chillingly candid. “I think it will be very hard for the Taliban to act against Al Qaeda, to actually limit their ability to attack outside the country,” he replied. “It’s possible, but I think it would be difficult.”

U.S. officials had warned of an ISIS attack over the past week in wake of the sweeping Taliban takeover. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie of the U.S. Central Command said Thursday that the attackers were two ISIS suicide bombers.

Experts said the group, dubbed the “mortal adversary” of the Taliban, pose the biggest threat to America’s presence in the country.