Twenty five years after the 9/11 attacks, al-Qaeda and other terror groups are regrouping in Afghanistan following the US withdrawal and the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, according to a Washington Post report, citing US and Western security officials and a United Nations organisation.
Al-Qaeda and its offshoots have established at least eight bases in Afghanistan over the past three years, while Islamic State, al-Qaeda’s main rival, has also set up training sites in the country in recent years, the report added.
A UN report cited by The Washington Post said the Taliban has reintroduced "a permissive environment" that has allowed al-Qaeda "to consolidate, with the presence of safe houses and training camps across Afghanistan."
However, terror groups gaining a foothold in Afghanistan appear to be focusing more on regional conflicts than global jihad and remain constrained by the Taliban’s reluctance to invite renewed international intervention in the country, according to officials and counterterrorism experts cited by the newspaper.
With al-Qaeda’s top leadership still believed to be hiding in Iran or elsewhere, no Osama bin Laden-like figure has emerged to galvanise its followers. However, the return of training camps has raised growing concerns among counterterrorism officials.
"They’re not following the pre-9/11 game plan of going after the far enemy," Washington Post quoted Bruce Hoffman, a counterterrorism expert at Georgetown University, as saying.
“But I think they hope that with local and regional gains they can start to rebuild momentum. They haven’t forgotten us,” Hoffman added.
The threat echoes missed opportunities before the 9/11 attacks, when the US failed to dismantle al-Qaeda’s training camps in Afghanistan.
According to the US 9/11 Commission, al-Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed first proposed hijacking planes and flying them into US buildings in 1996 at an al-Qaeda complex in Tora Bora, Afghanistan. Bin Laden later approved the plan near Kandahar. All 19 hijackers spent time at al-Qaeda camps or safe houses in Afghanistan before carrying out the attacks.
UN and security officials have also investigated claims that al-Qaeda was trying to re-establish a presence at Tarnak Farms near Kandahar airport, a site where the CIA had previously spotted bin Laden. However, a Washington Post review of satellite imagery found no visible signs of renewed activity there.
The new camps are reportedly being used to train fighters in weapons, explosives and guerrilla tactics, while officials have also seen indications of training in encryption, artificial intelligence, drones and other technologies.
Colin Smith, coordinator of a UN monitoring team tracking terrorist threats, estimated that 100 or fewer militants in Afghanistan belong to core al-Qaeda.
Rather than leading operations itself, “we’ve seen al-Qaeda acting as a consulting service for other groups,” Smith told Washington Post. “Giving them advice and training on things like covert operations and information security.”
The group has increasingly played a supporting role to larger affiliates, including Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which seeks to overthrow Pakistan’s government and establish an Islamic state.
A 2024 UN report said al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan’s Kunar province were “conducting suicide bomber training for TTP.”
Smith estimated that TTP has as many as 7,000 fighters in Afghanistan.
UN reports have said the group has camps in at least four Afghan provinces “with al-Qaeda and Taliban involvement” and has carried out hundreds of cross-border attacks in Pakistan.
Islamic State-Khorasan expands
Islamic State-Khorasan, meanwhile, has also sought to strengthen its presence in Afghanistan. The affiliate has attracted about 2,000 recruits and uses northern Afghanistan as its “main hub” for training and planning operations across Central Asia, according to officials and UN reports.
Al-Qaeda and Islamic State remain fierce rivals, competing for influence within the global jihadist movement. Both, however, appear more focused on recruiting fighters from Afghanistan and neighbouring countries than attracting foreign militants as al-Qaeda did in the 1990s.
"What I’ve seen from al-Qaeda media suggest that they’re not really looking for foreign fighters right now," Washington Post quoted Sara Harmouch, a terrorism expert at George Washington University, as saying. "They don’t want eyes on them as they try to rebuild these capabilities."
US and other security officials said monitoring the camps has become harder following the drawdown of CIA personnel and other intelligence capabilities after the 2021 US withdrawal. Washington has also shifted resources towards the war in Iran and other priorities.
The 2022 US drone strike that killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s successor, in Kabul nevertheless demonstrated that Washington retained intelligence and strike capabilities in Afghanistan.
Al-Qaeda is now led by Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian who helped run training camps in Afghanistan after arriving there in 1988. He is believed to remain in hiding in Iran, according to the report, citing officials.