UNITED NATIONS (AP) – Al-Qaeda’s past ties to the recently empowered Taliban have the potential of making Afghanistan a safe haven for extremists, and “terrorist groups enjoy greater freedom there than at any time in recent history,” UN experts said in a new report.
In the wide-ranging report, the experts also said terrorists linked to both Al-Qaeda and Daesh are advancing in Africa, especially in the turbulent Sahel. And they said Daesh continues to operate “as an entrenched rural insurgency” in Iraq and Syria, where its so-called caliphate ruled a significant swathe of the two countries from 2014-2017 when it was defeated by Iraqi forces, aided by Russia and Iran.
In what it called “a bright spot” in Southeast Asia, the panel of experts said both Indonesia and the Philippines reported “significant gains” in disrupting Daesh and Al-Qaeda-affiliated “terrorism” and “some optimism” that their operational capability “may be significantly degraded.”
The report to the UN Security Council by the panel of experts monitoring sanctions against Al-Qaeda and Daesh, called the Taliban’s return to power on Aug. 15 amid the chaotic final withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops after 20 years of occupation of the country the most significant event of the last six months of 2021.
The Taliban first ruled Afghanistan from 1996-2001 and were ousted for harboring Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden for masterminding the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. in 2001. In a February 2020 deal that spelled out the terms of the U.S. troop withdrawal, the Taliban had promised to fight terrorism and deny terrorist groups a safe haven in Afghanistan.
But the panel of experts said “there are no recent signs that the Taliban has taken steps to limit the activities of foreign terrorist fighters in the country.” On the contrary, it said, terrorist groups are enjoying “greater freedom”.
The experts noted that Al-Qaeda released a statement congratulating the Taliban on its victory on Aug. 31, but since then it has maintained “a strategic silence, likely an effort not to compromise Taliban efforts to gain international recognition and legitimacy.”
“Al-Qaeda is also continuing to recover from a series of leadership losses and is assessed to lack the capability to conduct high-profile attacks overseas, which remains its long-term goal,” the panel said.
Al-Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahri was reported alive in January 2021, it said, “but member states continue to believe that he is in poor health.”
The experts noted that Amin Muhammad ul-Haq Saam Khan, who coordinated security for bin Laden, returned to his home in Afghanistan in late August. And they said an unnamed country reported that bin Laden’s son, Abdallah, visited in October for talks with the Taliban.