The latest United Nations assessment of terrorism in South Asia makes uncomfortable reading for anyone who still treats the security problem in Afghanistan as contained within its borders. The 38th report of the UN Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team concludes that the terrorist threat emanating from Afghanistan remains persistent and that numerous groups continue to retain the ability to operate there. More significantly, the report describes this presence as an enduring danger to neighbouring countries and Central Asia. Afghanistan, in other words, remains part of a regional terrorism problem rather than merely a country struggling with an internal insurgency.
Pakistan has been making precisely this argument for years. Islamabad’s concern has never been confined to the physical presence of individual militants. The greater danger lies in the space available for groups to regroup, train, communicate, obtain logistical support and move across organisational boundaries. The Monitoring Team says attacks by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan continued to escalate and reports that the Afghan de facto authorities maintained support for the group even as they took some measures to restrain it. That combination reveals the central contradiction in Afghanistan’s counterterrorism posture.
Limited action against particular militants cannot substitute for dismantling the wider infrastructure that allows militancy to survive
The case of Islamic State Khorasan Province illustrates the problem particularly well. Afghan authorities frequently cite operations against ISKP as evidence of their determination to combat terrorism. The UN report acknowledges that these operations have inflicted serious setbacks and reduced ISKP attacks inside Afghanistan. But the same assessment warns that the organization remains resilient, is rebuilding and retains the ability to conduct occasional high profile mass casualty attacks. It also notes that ISKP activity increased in Pakistan and that the group reportedly shifted elements towards northern Afghanistan while maintaining training activity around the Afghanistan Pakistan border region.
This matters because terrorism is no longer best understood as a collection of completely isolated organizations. One of the most disturbing findings in the report concerns shared infrastructure. According to information supplied by one member state, ISKP and the Baloch Liberation Army shared facilitation networks for logistics. Another member state reported that BLA militants had been trained alongside TTP members by Al Qaeda trainers in Afghanistan. These findings require careful attribution, but they cannot be dismissed. They suggest that organizations with different ideologies and political objectives can still benefit from common routes, facilitators, training arrangements and criminal networks.
That emerging picture deserves particular attention in the international debate over sanctions against the BLA and its Majeed Brigade. Pakistan and China have already sought their designation under the UN’s sanctions architecture, while some Security Council members have questioned whether sufficient links with Al Qaeda or Islamic State exist to satisfy the relevant listing criteria. The new Monitoring Team findings do not automatically settle that legal question, but they materially strengthen the argument for an objective reassessment.
A group should not escape international scrutiny merely because its declared political objectives differ from those of transnational jihadist organizations. Shared terrorist infrastructure is itself a serious security concern
Al Qaeda’s continuing footprint makes the picture still more troubling. The report states that its strength in Afghanistan remained largely unchanged and says it continued to provide ideological guidance, training and support to the TTP. It further reports that the leadership of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent remained in Kabul and had allegedly received Afghan identity documents, which the Monitoring Team says suggested close cooperation with the Taliban. Elsewhere, it records reports of an Al Qaeda training camp being used by militants from the East Turkistan Islamic Movement or Turkistan Islamic Party. None of this supports the idea that Afghanistan has been comprehensively separated from transnational jihadist networks.
These findings also reopen questions surrounding commitments made in the 2020 Doha agreement. The Taliban undertook to prevent Al Qaeda and other groups from using Afghan soil to threaten the United States and its allies. Five years after the Taliban’s return to Kabul, the more relevant test is not whether terrorist organizations openly administer territory under their own flags. The test is whether they can find trainers, facilitators, documentation, logistical routes, recruitment opportunities and sufficient operational space to sustain themselves. On that measure, the international community has substantial reason for concern.
The warnings are no longer coming from Pakistan alone. Recent commentary in the American press, including reporting and analysis associated with The Washington Times, has raised similar concerns about Al Qaeda’s continued presence and the possibility that Afghanistan could again provide space for networks threatening regional and Western security.
Such assessments are important because they make it increasingly difficult to portray Pakistan’s warnings as simply a product of bilateral tensions with Kabul
The real lesson of the 38th Monitoring Team report is therefore broader than the danger posed by any single organization. Afghanistan risks becoming an ecosystem in which TTP, ISKP, Al Qaeda, AQIS, BLA elements and other militant networks may remain ideologically distinct while benefiting from overlapping infrastructure. Counterterrorism policy that targets one organization while tolerating another will only move the threat from one network to the next.
Regional stability requires a different approach. Afghanistan’s de facto authorities must be judged by verifiable action against all terrorist organizations, not selective operations against adversaries that directly threaten their own rule. Pakistan, China, Central Asian states and Western governments also need intelligence cooperation that focuses on facilitators, financing, training networks and cross group linkages. The warning has now been documented internationally. Ignoring it would allow a dangerous militant ecosystem to harden into something far more difficult to dismantle later.
