The shadow of September 11, 2001, still hangs heavy over international politics, and the world cannot afford to ignore the dangerous question confronting us today: is Afghanistan once again becoming the epicenter of global terrorism?
In May 2025, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s announcement that Washington was weighing whether to designate the Taliban as a “foreign terrorist organization” jolted policymakers worldwide. This was no idle threat. The Taliban’s long-standing ties with al-Qaeda remain an open secret, and despite lofty promises in Doha that Afghan soil would not be used against any other country, evidence increasingly suggests the opposite.
The Taliban’s return to power in August 2021 has created a permissive environment for jihadist groups. According to UN Security Council monitors, al-Qaeda’s strength remains “unchanged,” with a lattice of safe houses, training camps, and logistical routes flourishing across Afghanistan. This is not the portrait of a defeated terrorist network it is the blueprint of resurgence. The assassination of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul in 2022 should have been the final proof of collusion: the world’s most wanted terrorist was living under the nose and in the home of a Taliban aide.
For the United States, which spilled blood and treasure over two decades to dismantle terrorist sanctuaries in Afghanistan, this reality is deeply unsettling. Washington’s leaked assessment that al-Qaeda had not reconstituted itself in Afghanistan looks increasingly outdated. The truth is far darker: al-Qaeda’s leadership remains embedded, its networks intact, and its ideological bond with the Taliban unbroken.
But the danger does not stop at al-Qaeda. The Taliban’s ascendance has also emboldened their ideological cousins across the Durand Line. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), once fractured and on the defensive, has roared back to life. After walking away from a fragile ceasefire in late 2022, the TTP unleashed a wave of terror inside Pakistan, killing 2,526 people in 2024 alone, according to the Islamabad-based Center for Research and Security Studies. Pakistani security officials now find themselves on the front lines of a brutal war against the very militants who seek to destabilize the state. Far from supporting extremism, Pakistan today is waging an unrelenting battle to safeguard its people and its borders.
The geopolitical implications are severe. Afghanistan today is not an isolated theater it is once again a terrorism incubator with regional and global reach. Al-Qaeda’s dormant but persistent networks, the TTP’s cross-border sanctuaries, and the Taliban’s refusal to break with jihadist allies all point to a grim truth: the so-called “new Taliban” is indistinguishable from the old one. Its promises to the world are hollow, its word worth less than the ink it was written with in Doha.
The consequences will not remain confined to South Asia. If the Taliban continues to provide safe haven to extremist groups, the threat will metastasize beyond the Hindu Kush. Europe, the Middle East, and even the United States could once again find themselves in the crosshairs of plots conceived in Afghan safe houses. This is not speculation; history has already shown us the price of ignoring Afghanistan’s descent into a terrorist sanctuary.
The question is not whether Afghanistan is flourishing with terrorist activity it undeniably is. The real question is whether the world has the political will to confront it before it spirals out of control. The Biden administration’s withdrawal may have ended America’s longest war, but it also opened the door for a terrorist revival. Now, with the Taliban entrenched in Kabul, the region on edge, and jihadist groups emboldened, the clock is ticking.
The world must make a choice: either pressure and isolate the Taliban until it severs ties with terror networks, or risk sleepwalking into another catastrophic attack conceived in the very place where the last one was born. History has given us a second warning. The only question is whether we will heed it.
