OPINION — There was an argument suggesting that the worldwide group—significantly the US—ought to have interaction with the Taliban to carry them accountable and guarantee they don’t return to the identical path they adopted earlier than 9/11: offering protected sanctuaries to Al Qaeda and different worldwide terrorist teams. Advocates of such a coverage usually assume that the US had no engagement with the Taliban previous to 9/11. This assumption is deceptive. In actuality, the U.S. had established each direct and oblique communication channels with the Taliban years earlier than the assaults.
A declassified U.S. State Division doc detailing these interactions exhibits that the Division alone carried out greater than 30 in-person conferences with the Taliban in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Germany, and the US. Notably, simply two days after the U.S. missile strikes on Khost Province in response to the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, a telephone name was organized between the Director for Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh within the Bureau of South Asian Affairs and Mullah Omar. Throughout that dialog, Mullah Omar insisted that negotiations ought to proceed via U.S. and Afghan embassies in Pakistan, underscoring his desire for sustained diplomatic engagement regardless of tensions.
The declassified doc highlights a gathering on September 18, 1996, when the Political Officer of the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan met with Mullah Jalil, then the Taliban’s liaison with the ISI and later appointed because the group’s Deputy Minister of International Affairs. This assembly happened simply days earlier than the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul. In it, Mullah Jalil explicitly acknowledged that “the Taliban don’t help terrorism and wouldn’t present refuge to bin Laden.” What unfolded after the autumn of Kabul to the Taliban, nevertheless, instantly contradicted that assurance. Furthermore, one other document in the identical doc notes a gathering on January 16, 1997, throughout which, in response to a U.S. request to examine two terrorist coaching camps in Afghanistan’s japanese provinces, Mullah Jalil agreed and emphasised that “the Taliban supported the U.S. on counterterrorism and counternarcotics points.” But, regardless of this dedication, the Taliban by no means granted permission for the U.S. to go to these camps.
A overview of this and different declassified paperwork regarding U.S. “diplomatic” engagement with the Taliban reveals a constant sample: the Taliban by no means adopted a definitive stance on surrendering Osama bin Laden or formally renouncing terrorism. As a substitute, they extended negotiations, repeatedly providing new “alternatives” to take care of U.S. engagement with out making substantive concessions. On the similar time, the US missed a number of alternatives between 1996 and 2001 to behave on intelligence that would have curtailed bin Laden’s operations.
One recurring theme in these talks was the Taliban’s insistence that restrictions had been positioned on bin Laden, supposedly stopping him from threatening U.S. nationwide safety. Latest experiences counsel the Taliban are using an identical tactic at present—although with up to date language and rationale. In conferences with U.S. officers between 2021 and 2022, Taliban representatives portrayed themselves as taking “efforts towards terrorism.” This narrative was so deceptive that one member of the worldwide group described Afghanistan as “a retirement residence for terrorists”—implying that the Taliban’s technique was to not oppose Al Qaeda, however fairly to defend its members by offering them with protected haven, monetary help, and a quiet life away from the frontlines of world terrorism.
In actuality, the scenario in Afghanistan is deeply distressing for anybody who, in any capability, was concerned within the twenty years of the World Conflict on Terror or in broader efforts to advance peace and safety worldwide. What makes it much more troubling is the acquainted sample: simply as within the pre-9/11 years, the Taliban proceed to current themselves as companions in managing terrorism whereas in actuality providing sanctuary and area for terrorist teams —together with Al Qaeda—to endure and pursue their efforts for international terrorism.
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Al Qaeda’s Operational Command
Al Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan at present is multilayered and in depth. They’ll not be thought to be merely a non-Afghan jihadist group that selected to stay within the nation after the Mujahideen started dropping territory to the Taliban within the Nineteen Nineties. As a substitute, they’re now thought-about an in-group fairly than outsiders, largely as a result of Al Qaeda fought alongside the Taliban towards the ANDSF and NATO forces for practically twenty years. The Taliban’s return to energy is seen by Al Qaeda as a joint victory, additional solidifying their bond.
In consequence, Al Qaeda not maintains the diploma of operational distance from the Taliban that it did previous to 9/11. A telling instance got here in July 2022, when Ayman al-Zawahiri was positioned in a guesthouse just some miles from Afghanistan’s Presidential Palace in Kabul, the place he was killed in a U.S. counterterrorism operation. His presence in a significant metropolis, with out important safety precautions, was unprecedented and demonstrates the depth of Al Qaeda’s belief and confidence within the Taliban.
Developments since al-Zawahiri’s demise point out that, opposite to some predictions, his killing didn’t create a rift between the Taliban and Al Qaeda. As a substitute, it underscored the resilience of their partnership. The Taliban adjusted sure facets of their safety structure—similar to tightening safehouse protocols and limiting the motion of senior figures—however these measures have been largely formed by Al Qaeda’s personal recommendation and operational experience. For its half, Al Qaeda internalized the lesson that even inside an setting of unprecedented sanctuary, complacency might show deadly. Slightly than distancing itself from the Taliban, the group recalibrated its safety posture, adopting extra disciplined precautions for its senior management whereas sustaining its shut integration with Taliban constructions.
Removed from weakening the connection, the incident created a brand new opening for Al Qaeda to extend its leverage inside the Taliban. By portraying itself because the extra skilled actor in counter-surveillance and operational safety, Al Qaeda positioned itself to intervene extra instantly in Taliban decision-making processes, significantly these associated to safety reforms and intelligence practices. On this manner, al-Zawahiri’s demise grew to become not some extent of rupture, however a chance for Al Qaeda to deepen its affect over the Taliban’s inner constructions. This improvement allowed Al Qaeda to function with even higher freedom.
To successfully facilitate its operations in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda restructured its organizational framework in late 2022, drawing on each its historic practices and the teachings realized from twenty years of battle. The experiences advised that on the middle of this effort was the appointment of a brand new Emir (chief) for Afghanistan, at present based mostly in Kandahar, who regularly travels to key provinces similar to Kabul, Khost, Nangarhar, and Balkh. The Emir acts because the very important conduit between Al Qaeda’s senior management and its provincial operatives, making certain cohesion throughout dispersed items and sustaining alignment with the group’s broader strategic targets.
Beneath his supervision, Al Qaeda has organized comparatively small operational cells of 15–25 people in every province. These cells are intentionally saved small to scale back publicity whereas sustaining flexibility and resilience. Regardless of their dimension, they serve extremely specialised capabilities—starting from managing logistics for coaching camps and working safehouses and guesthouses to facilitating covert communications and conducting counterintelligence operations. The UN Safety Council Monitoring Workforce’s thirty fifth report corroborates the existence of Al Qaeda coaching camps, safehouses, and guesthouses inside Afghanistan as properly. Counterintelligence actions of Al Qaeda are significantly essential, enabling the group to watch potential infiltrators, detect hostile intelligence efforts, and safeguard its networks from compromise. This decentralized but disciplined construction not solely supplies Al Qaeda with a sturdy operational footprint but additionally creates a scalable framework for future enlargement, permitting the group to attract on native recruits and overseas fighters each time situations allow.
The Emir’s function extends past coordinating provincial operations to managing the clandestine motion and integration of operatives. By way of a community of facilitators and couriers, he oversees the discreet switch of personnel throughout Afghanistan’s borders—primarily from Pakistan and Iran, and infrequently by way of Central Asia. Recruits are sometimes moved in small teams to keep away from detection, quickly sheltered in safehouses, after which built-in into Al Qaeda’s Afghan construction via vetting, indoctrination, and coaching. This cautious orchestration ensures that even when particular person cells are compromised, the broader community stays intact and adaptable. By guaranteeing safe transit routes and embedding fighters into operational items, the Emir performs a pivotal function in Al Qaeda’s survival, regeneration, and deepening partnership with the Taliban, whose safety constructions present important cowl.
In mid-2024, Mohammed Salahuddin Zeidan—higher generally known as Saif al-Adl and serving as Al Qaeda’s operational chief—characterised Afghanistan as Dar al-Hijra, the “Land of Emigration,” in an essay supposed to rally help for the reason for Gaza. He described Afghanistan as a refuge the place Muslims from all over the world might migrate to safeguard their religion and consolidate energy in preparation for hanging their enemies. Within the essay, Saif al-Adl urged Muslims globally to come back to Afghanistan “to realize coaching, expertise, and information earlier than enterprise assaults towards” Israel and the Western world. This assertion was not solely a name to arms but additionally a public sign of what Al Qaeda expects from the Taliban and the territory beneath their management. The Taliban, for his or her half, did nothing to refute the decision; as a substitute, they launched a marketing campaign to draw extra “vacationers” from all over the world to Afghanistan, thereby reinforcing Al Qaeda’s narrative fairly than undermining it. Undoubtedly, the absence of strategic counterterrorism capabilities on the bottom, the Taliban’s complicity with Al Qaeda, and the nation’s tough terrain collectively make Afghanistan the most secure place on the planet for Al Qaeda and different terrorist teams to consolidate, regroup, and increase.
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Al Qaeda’s Income Hub
Al Qaeda can be looking for to generate income for its actions in Afghanistan. To this finish, the group established a second command-and-control hub in Panjshir Province, distinct from its major base in Kandahar. Not like the Kandahar construction, which focuses on operational coordination, the Panjshir hub is tasked with attracting funding in mining initiatives throughout Panjshir, Sar-e Pul, Takhar, Badakhshan, and different northern provinces with the purpose of boosting Al Qaeda’s monetary sources. Not too long ago, the Press Workplace of the Taliban’s governor in Panjshir, Mawlawi Mohammad Agha Hakim—himself recognized to carry allegiance to Al Qaeda—reported that he had obtained a delegation of Ulema and buyers from the Center East, together with representatives from Yemen, Palestine, Iraq, Bahrain, and Qatar. Based on the governor’s workplace, the delegation expressed curiosity in investing in Panjshir. Significantly notable was the presence of Abdullah al-Zindani, head of the Yemeni Ulema Shura and son of Abdul Majid al-Zindani. The elder al-Zindani, now deceased, was well known as the religious mentor of Osama bin Laden and a key determine in operating Al Qaeda’s recruitment and coaching camps. The participation of his son in such a delegation underscores the enduring transnational networks that proceed to maintain Al Qaeda’s presence and ambitions in Afghanistan.
Curiously, photographs of Abdullah al-Zindani and different members of the delegation visiting Panjshir have been broadly printed within the media. The very subsequent day, nevertheless, the spokesperson for Governor Mohammad Agha Hakim launched a assertion declaring that the Taliban governor had banned the media from publishing photographs or movies of his conferences. This sequence of occasions means that the preliminary protection of the delegation’s go to was the results of an inner lapse. As soon as the photographs have been already in circulation, the next ban appeared much less like a safety measure and extra like a belated try at injury management—an effort that was in the end futile, because the photographs had already reached a large viewers.
Most senior appointments in Panjshir Province have reportedly been made on the suggestion of Al Qaeda, reflecting the group’s affect inside the Taliban’s administrative construction. Mawlawi Hakim Agha, the present Taliban governor of Panjshir, beforehand held a distinguished place inside Al Qaeda’s command construction in Afghanistan—his placement as governor underscoring the Valley’s strategic significance to the community. Equally, Mullah Musafer, commander of the Taliban’s Panjshir Bridage, stands out as one other vital determine who has formally pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda. Lengthy thought to be one of many group’s most elusive and influential operatives in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Musafer was implicated by the Nationwide Directorate of Safety (NDS) in a number of high-profile assaults, together with the January 2017 terrorist assault in Kandahar that killed 5 UAE diplomats, the provincial deputy governor, and an Afghan diplomat. He’s not the one Al Qaeda operative embedded inside the Taliban administration, however Musafer stays one of the vital important given his twin function in directing army operations and facilitating illicit mining actions that generate substantial income for Al Qaeda. An unpublished report by a danger evaluation agency, shared amongst Western diplomats, signifies that Al Qaeda earnings tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} from mines in Badakhshan and Takhar.
Al Qaeda has enormously capitalized on the Taliban in Afghanistan to strengthen its networks of recruitment, operations, and financing. Since December 2021, an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 jihadi madrasas have been established throughout the nation, working outdoors the supervision of the Taliban’s Ministry of Schooling. Oversight as a substitute falls beneath a newly created physique—the Normal Directorate of Jihadi Madrasas and Orphanages in Kandahar—which centralizes management of those establishments. Experiences point out that the curriculum was designed by an Al Qaeda staff, embedding the group’s ideological agenda into the tutorial system. Moreover, candidates to those madrasas are subjected to particular safety clearance procedures, making certain ideological conformity and minimizing infiltration, thus tightening Al Qaeda’s maintain over the subsequent era of militants. In consequence, Al Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan continues to pose a severe and enduring risk—not simply to Afghanistan and its neighbors, however to international safety at giant.
Conclusion
The Taliban’s return to energy has not altered the basic dynamics between them and Al Qaeda; fairly, it has deepened them. The historical past of U.S.–Taliban negotiations earlier than 9/11 reveals a transparent sample of deception, one which persists in at present’s engagements. Al Qaeda is not an exterior visitor in Afghanistan—it’s an entrenched accomplice, strategically embedded inside Taliban constructions and empowered by a permissive setting that permits coaching, recruitment, and financing. From exploiting illicit mining and cultivating transnational investor networks to indoctrinating a brand new era via tens of hundreds of jihadi madrasas, Al Qaeda is rebuilding its infrastructure with the Taliban’s energetic complicity. Removed from being a “retirement residence for terrorists,” Afghanistan beneath the Taliban has grow to be the most secure and most sustainable base for Al Qaeda’s international ambitions because the pre-9/11 period. Except this trajectory is confronted with readability and resolve, the worldwide group dangers witnessing the regeneration of a risk with penalties that reach properly past Afghanistan’s borders.
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