Nonstate threats in the Talibans Afghanistan – Brookings Institution
While Afghanistans new Taliban leadership has been preoccupied with the near-term challenges of forming a government, managing internal tensions, and pursuing foreign recognition and funding to stave off an economic collapse, nonstate armed actors in Afghanistan have begun to assess the opportunities and limitations that come with a return to Taliban rule. For them, the new environment is likely to be favorable. These groups, including designated terrorist organizations, will find themselves less vulnerable to monitoring and targeting by the United States and its coalition partners; will be able to take advantage of a huge pool of experienced armed labor drawn from former Taliban, Afghan security forces, and other militant ranks; and will have increased space to forge new collaborations and plan operations in the region and further afield.
This new environment poses numerous risks to the U.S. and its partners. This analysis reviews three of the most prominent and their implications for the United States.
The first risk is that the Islamic State Khorasan (ISK), which has had an openly adversarial relationship with the Taliban, takes advantage of the new governments weakness and preoccupations to bolster its own recruiting, fundraising, and territorial control within Afghanistan; and that its pressure on the government makes the Taliban leadership less likely to offer concessions to domestic or foreign critics.
ISK, the Afghanistan affiliate of the larger Islamic State group, emerged in 2015 and established a main base of operations in the countrys mountainous eastern regions. Salafi in outlook, it is militantly anti-Shia and rejected both the Pakistani government and the Western-backed Afghan government as apostate regimes that ought to be overthrown and replaced.
From its founding, ISK has also been fiercely critical of the Taliban, which it regards as insufficiently Islamic. Taliban and ISK fighters have clashed frequently, and the Taliban played a critical role in defeating ISK strongholds in rural Afghanistan, coordinating informally at times with U.S. forces. Following the Taliban takeover last summer, ISK continued its attacks, this time targeting the Taliban not as insurgent competitors, but as illegitimate governing authorities. Already ISK is taking advantage of the Taliban governments divided attention and its struggles to establish basic social services. Its ranks renewed by prisoner releases and prison breaks during the tumultuous collapse of the Ashraf Ghani government, ISK has stepped up the pace of urban attacks and, according to United Nations reporting, is positioning itself as the sole pure rejectionist group in Afghanistan. As the U.S. and its Afghan partners learned over many years, defending urban areas against dedicated teams of small-cell terrorists is a daunting task, even for a well-resourced government.
While ISK might seek to copy elements of the Talibans insurgent strategy, it stands little chance of replicating the Talibans success. The groups Salafi ideology and embrace of wanton violence against civilians will continue to alienate most Afghans, even religiously conservative Pashtun leaders. Even so, a revitalized ISK would be disruptive and dangerous. It could modestly expand its territorial control, giving it the opportunity to extract rents and engage in coercive recruitment, and could leverage spectacular attacks against the government to raise its profile. In theory ISK could use safe havens and expanded resources to plan attacks against Western targets, but there are no public indications that it is plotting to do so; more likely it will remain focused on contesting for control of the Afghan state.
ISKs campaign of attacks is also shaping the Taliban leaderships calculations in unhelpful ways. The Taliban has been relatively cohesive, but as it pivots to governance, its factionalization is becoming more apparent. Some of the movements leaders who negotiated with the international community clearly prefer a somewhat more accommodating posture toward foreign donor institutions and a more inclusive government, while others, most notably Sirajuddin Haqqani, interior minister and leader of the infamous Haqqani Network, have successfully pushed the government to adopt hardline positions on domestic and foreign policy. Facing a vigorous challenge from ISK, the Taliban will likely worry about defections and a loss of ideological legitimacy. These pressures will only empower hardline elements.
The second risk is that a Haqqani-dominated Taliban government in Kabul, with few reputational incentives to constrain the activities of al-Qaida or Pakistan-aligned militant organizations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), will allow these groups increased freedom to use Afghanistan for logistics, recruiting, and planning, and to reduce their dependencies on Pakistan.
It was inevitable, even under the best of circumstances, that the departure of U.S. and coalition forces from Afghanistan would lead to a more permissive environment for terrorist groups. Indeed, the U.S. government estimated in October that ISK could reconstitute its ability to conduct external operations against the United States in six to 12 months while al-Qaida could do so with a year or two. India and its global partners, meanwhile, are rightly worried that LeT and JeM, which have largely used Afghanistan as a secondary theater for recruiting and training, will have even greater room to plan attacks against Indian targets.
The prominence of Haqqani Network-associated militants in the security apparatus of the new government merely exacerbates these risks. The Haqqanis and certain other Taliban military commanders have sustained close ties with al-Qaida, and although they may advise the terror group to maintain a low profile, they do not appear to have made meaningful much less irreversible efforts to constrain its freedom of action. The Haqqanis links with Pakistan-sponsored jihadi groups are also longstanding, complex, and mutual. LeT and JeM could gain from securing with presumed Pakistani mediation sustained support by the Haqqanis to train and recruit in Afghanistan. And the Haqqanis and their allies would benefit from stitching together a broad coalition of militants that can oppose ISK and deny it legitimacy and space to recruit.
The reality is that al-Qaida, LeT, JeM, and other groups targeting Western and Indian interests do not need the Talibans active support and facilitation. They need only that the new Afghan government remain largely passive and on that count, the Taliban are likely to oblige. Even though the Taliban has obvious incentives to prevent al-Qaida in particular from planning foreign attacks from its soil, and al-Qaida itself may be hampered by organizational weaknesses, the U.S. cannot rely on the Talibans reputational anxieties to constrain al-Qaida and other (non-Islamic State) militants. Pakistan, therefore, may well continue to be a valuable, if fraught, counterterrorism partner: It is close enough to the Taliban to gain unique insights into al-Qaidas activities in Afghanistan, and sufficiently anxious about al-Qaidas historic animus toward Pakistan that it might be willing to cooperate in limited ways with Washington to degrade the group.
The third risk is that the increasingly permissive and opaque environment in Afghanistan, combined with the large pool of unemployed armed labor, will lead to novel operational partnerships among nonstate armed actors that could make it hard to identify new threats to the U.S. and its partners.
The risks, in other words, are not simply anchored in what the counterterrorism community can discern about todays Taliban-led Afghanistan, but about what it cannot see or predict. Afghanistan is a fecund environment for new militant partnerships. Even before the fall of the Ghani government, the Haqqanis were acting as the default broker among a dizzying array of groups: al-Qaida; India-focused militants; anti-Shia sectarian groups; the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), focused on challenging the Pakistani state; Uyghur militants, about whom China has pressed the Taliban to crack down; and others.
This complex organizational network of Sunni militant groups is now intersecting with a market that is flush with former Taliban, unemployed ex-Afghan National Security Forces foot soldiers, and militants arriving from nearby countries to take advantage of the permissive environment or the recruiting opportunities. Militant organizations are unlikely to be able to absorb more than a small fraction of these available fighters, but they will benefit from the unusually high-quality labor pool.
Washingtons ability to understand the militant landscape in Afghanistan has already been dramatically degraded with the loss last summer of many of its human intelligence and technical collection platforms. U.S. visibility will decrease further as militant labor flows in unpredictable ways. Unfortunately, this risk cannot easily be mitigated by diplomatic partnerships or military infrastructure. U.S. insights into the Afghan militant environment will inevitably be more heavily mediated by Pakistan which despite its narrow assistance against al-Qaida, and of course TTP, is considered by most U.S. officials to be an unreliable narrator due to its substantive support to the Taliban and anti-India militants.
A large-scale U.S. and coalition presence in Afghanistan did not prevent the United States from being startled and embarrassed in 2015 by the discovery of a massive al-Qaida training camp in southern Afghanistan. That discovery created waves in the U.S. counterterrorism community, which had grown overly confident in its assumptions about the militant environment. Afghanistans ability to surprise us is even greater today than it was seven years ago. The United States has little choice but to remain vigilant.
Follow this link:
Nonstate threats in the Talibans Afghanistan - Brookings Institution
- 'Welcome to Afghanistan': Shocking tourism promo urging Americans to visit the country goes viral - Hindustan Times - Hindustan Times - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Trump dishes on Milley clash over leaving military equipment in Afghanistan: 'I knew he was an idiot' - Fox News - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Russia becomes the first country to recognize Taliban's rule in Afghanistan - NBC News - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Statement of the ICC Office of the Prosecutor on the issuance of arrest warrants in the Situation in Afghanistan - | International Criminal Court - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Following decades in Iran, 'there's nothing left' for millions of Afghan migrants in Afghanistan - France 24 - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- 45-year-old man in Afghanistan married a 6-year-old child: the Taliban's reaction was swift - - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Welcome to Afghanistan': This could be the most bizarre tourism video ever - Stuff - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- The Hairdressers Story: Exile, Loss, and a Forced Return to Afghanistan - 8am.media - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- ICC expresses sadness at the passing of Afghanistan umpire Bismillah Jan Shinwari - ICC - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- UN adopts resolution on Afghanistan's Taliban rule over US objections - ABC News - Breaking News, Latest News and Videos - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Will Pakistan Be Next to Recognise Taliban Rule in Afghanistan After Russia? - Times Now - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Russia becomes first nation to recognize Taliban government of Afghanistan since 2021 takeover - CNN - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- India abstains from UNGA resolution on Afghanistan, calls for coordinated global efforts against terrorism - News On AIR - - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Experts: Russia Recognizing Taliban Rule in Afghanistan Largely a Symbolic Move - The Moscow Times - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Pakistan warns UN of escalating terror threat from Afghanistan - Dawn - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Tourists are trickling into Afghanistan. The Taliban are eager to welcome them - The Seattle Times - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Troops kill 30 militants trying to get into Pakistan from Afghanistan - Euronews - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Trump News | 'Afghanistan Maybe The Most Embarrassing Moment In The History Of US': Donald Trump - NDTV - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Tourists are trickling into Afghanistan and the Taliban government is eager to welcome them - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Afghanistan Emerges as a New Frontier for Adventure Tourism: A Blend of Promise and Challenges - Travel And Tour World - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Afghanistan: A Hidden Gem That Deserves to Be Seen Up Close - Vocal - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Russia Becomes First Nation To Recognize Taliban-Led Afghanistan - The Media Line - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Russia is the first country to recognise the Taliban government in Afghanistan - Commonspace.eu - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Russia Becomes First State to Recognise Taliban Government of Afghanistan - UNITED24 Media - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Russia becomes first country to officially recognise Taliban in Afghanistan - bne IntelliNews - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- The Unexpected Consequences of War Between Iran and Israel on Afghanistan - The Diplomat Asia-Pacific Current Affairs Magazine - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Russia is the first country in the world to recognize the Taliban government in Afghanistan - - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Sanctioned Businessman With Kremlin Ties Returns To Afghanistan - - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Pak security forces kill 30 terrorists trying to infiltrate from Afghanistan - Deccan Herald - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Russia Becomes First Country to Recognize Afghanistans Taliban Government - The New York Times - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Russia Is First Country to Recognize Taliban Rule in Afghanistan - The Daily Beast - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Troops kill 30 militants attempting to sneak into Pakistan from Afghanistan - AP News - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Taliban praise Russias brave decision to recognise their rule in Afghanistan - The Guardian - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Russia becomes first country to recognise Afghanistan's Taliban government - France 24 - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- News - Pace Thanks Troops in Afghanistan, Notes Signs of Progress - DVIDS - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Russia becomes the first country to formally recognize Talibans latest rule in Afghanistan - AP News - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Troops kill 30 militants attempting to sneak into Pakistan from Afghanistan - WRAL.com - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- News - Army Reservist to Receive Silver Star for Heroism in Afghanistan - DVIDS - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Russia becomes first nation to formally recognize Taliban-led government in Afghanistan - LiveNOW from FOX - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Hillsdale veteran Greg Whalen reflects on Afghanistan withdrawal through his music - Hillsdale Daily News - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Russia Becomes 1st Country To Recognise Taliban Government Of Afghanistan - NDTV - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- China Hails Russias Decision To Recognize Taliban Rule In Afghanistan; Will Beijing Follow Suit? - EurAsian Times - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Russia Becomes First Nation to Recognise Taliban Rule in Afghanistan - The Wire India - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Russia becomes first country to recognize Taliban government in Afghanistan - Trkiye Today - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Russia the first to recognise Taliban government in Afghanistan - BBC - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Russia becomes first country to recognise Taliban government of Afghanistan - The Indian Express - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Russia officially recognises the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan - 5Pillars - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Russia First to Officially Recognize Taliban Government in Afghanistan - - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Russia becomes first nation to formally recognize Taliban rule in Afghanistan - all details here - Mint - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Pakistan army kills 30 militants trying to cross from Afghanistan: Here's all we know - WION - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Kremlin's new stance: Russia first to officially recognise Afghanistan's Taliban government; will foster - Times of India - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Tourists Are Trickling into Afghanistan and the Taliban Government Is Eager to Welcome Them - Military.com - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Afghanistan: First-Hand Accounts Expose Torture by Taliban Intelligence Services - World Organisation Against Torture | OMCT - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Flight to freedom: A pilot's journey from the fall of Afghanistan to fighting fires in America - Fairfield Sun Times - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Building crutches, walkers, and stretchers from scratch in Afghanistan - Doctors Without Borders - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Russia to host seventh round of Moscow Format talks on Afghanistan this fall - Amu TV - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Earthquake of magnitude 3.9 strikes Afghanistan; third since June 28 - Business Standard - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- US Travelers Join The Surge In Foreign Visitors To Afghanistan, With The Taliban Government Eager To Capitalize On Tourism For Economic Revival -... - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Tourists are trickling into Afghanistan and the Taliban government is eager to welcome them - dailyrecordnews.com - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Afghanistan: Surging returns from Iran overwhelm fragile support systemsThe European Sting is Your democratic, independent and top quality political... - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Hengaw Organization for Human Rights: 40 Citizens of Afghanistan Executed in Iran Over the Past Six Months - Hasht-e Subh Daily - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Heavy rainfall triggers fatal flash floods in Maidan Wardak and Logar, Afghanistan - The Watchers - Watching the world evolve and transform - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Earthquake of magnitude 4.9 jolts Afghanistan - Times of India - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- The UN mission for Afghanistan has warned that the influx of deportees risks further destabilising the crisis-wracked country - IslanderNews.com - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Tourists are trickling into Afghanistan and the Taliban government is eager to welcome them - Temple Daily Telegram - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Russia to hold 7th Moscow Format Talks on Afghanistan This Fall - Khaama Press - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Record 256,000 migrants returned to Afghanistan from Iran in June IOM - Daily Excelsior - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Pakistan, Afghanistan no longer part of World Banks South Asia region; Johannes Zutt to be new head | Today News - Mint - June 29th, 2025 [June 29th, 2025]
- Tourists are trickling into Afghanistan and the Taliban government is eager to welcome them - AP News - June 29th, 2025 [June 29th, 2025]
- Tourists trickling back into Afghanistan; Taliban eager to welcome them - Tribune India - June 29th, 2025 [June 29th, 2025]
- Crossing The Divides: Chinas Gamble To Bring CPEC To Afghanistan OpEd - Eurasia Review - June 29th, 2025 [June 29th, 2025]
- Tourists are trickling into Afghanistan and the Taliban government is eager to welcome them - Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal - June 29th, 2025 [June 29th, 2025]
- Tourists are trickling into Afghanistan and the Taliban government is eager to welcome them - Bluefield Daily Telegraph - June 29th, 2025 [June 29th, 2025]
- Tourists are trickling into Afghanistan; Taliban govt eager to welcome them - Telangana Today - June 29th, 2025 [June 29th, 2025]
- Uzbekistan dispatch: is this country what Afghanistan might have been, or still could be? - JURIST Legal News - June 28th, 2025 [June 28th, 2025]
- UN Women: 80 Percent of Young Women in Afghanistan Denied Access to Education and Employment - Hasht-e Subh Daily - June 28th, 2025 [June 28th, 2025]
- Surge in Deportations from Iran: Over 88,000 Afghanistan Citizens Repatriated in Less Than a Week - Hasht-e Subh Daily - June 28th, 2025 [June 28th, 2025]
- Afghanistan Has Become Safe Haven For Terror Groups Again, Says US Congressman Bill Huizenga - Free Press Journal - June 28th, 2025 [June 28th, 2025]
- Access to emergency, critical and operative care in Afghanistan: Perspectives from Afghan people in 11 provinces - ReliefWeb - June 28th, 2025 [June 28th, 2025]
- Poland, Ukraine, Japan, US, Afghanistan and Iraq Witness Explosive Rise in Dark Tourism as Youth Seek Powerful and Haunting Travel Experiences -... - June 28th, 2025 [June 28th, 2025]