Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan sparks new fears of al-Qaida resurgence

In early July, as the Pentagon was accelerating the pullout of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, U.S. counterterror analysts circulated a confidential report highlighting a worrisome development thousands of miles away.

The al-Qaida offshoot in Saudi Arabia and Yemen had just published a new edition of its online magazine, Inspire — the first time it had done so in four years. The issue praised a mass shooting that killed 10 people in Boulder, Colo. (although there was no obvious connection to terrorism), and instructed future perpetrators to exploit lax U.S. gun laws by purchasing ready-made gun parts for easy at-home assembly.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula “additionally encourages attackers to use incendiary/explosive devices — either Molotov cocktails or improvised explosive devices” in order to “maximize the economic and psychological impact of the attack,” the magazine proclaimed, according to a joint FBI-Department of Homeland Security bulletin distributed to federal and state law enforcement agencies about the new issue of Inspire.

Labeled “for official use only,” a copy of the bulletin was obtained exclusively by Yahoo News.

The bulletin was a stark reminder that, even while President Biden was telling the American public that al-Qaida was “degraded,” the terror group and its affiliates remain very much alive and still quite active trying to figure out ways to cause death and destruction in the U.S. homeland. And as disturbing as the new edition of Inspire was when it surfaced more than a month ago, U.S. officials and counterterrorism experts say the threats from al-Qaida — and similar jihadi groups — are only likely to grow in the aftermath of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan following the U.S. withdrawal.

“For al-Qaida, this is a dream come true,” said Charles Lister, the director of counterterrorism programs at the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based think tank, about the Taliban victory. “This breathes new life into al-Qaida for the first time in many years — if not since before 9/11.”