A UN document warns of the growing terrorist threat in Afghanistan, warning that Al-Qaeda has training camps in the country and that one of its branches is becoming “more sophisticated and deadly in its actions.”
The warning appears in the latest report by the UN sanctions monitoring team against the Taliban, published today by Europa Press.
According to the document, the Taliban, in power in Afghanistan since August 2021, currently maintains a “strong and symbiotic” link with both Al-Qaeda and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP, the Pakistani Taliban) and, although they unleashed actions against the Islamic State Khorasan (ISKP, affiliate of the terrorist group), in general, “did not comply with the anti-terrorist provisions” included in the agreement reached with the United States.
In the Doha Agreement, signed in February 2020 with the Donald Trump administration, the Taliban pledged not to use Afghan territory as a launching pad for new attacks, such as the one carried out by Al-Qaida on US soil on September 11. .
In exchange, Washington agreed to the withdrawal of its troops in Afghanistan, whose hasty departure led to the fall of the government of Hamid Karzai in August 2021, which allowed the return to power of the Taliban.
According to the document, based on information provided by UN member states, the Taliban have not lived up to their commitments as “Al-Qaida is rebuilding its operational capacity” and ISKP operations “are becoming more sophisticated and lethal.” “.
Al-Qaeda “keeps a low profile,” using Afghanistan “as an ideological and logistical hub to mobilize and recruit new fighters, while secretly rebuilding its foreign action capacity,” it says.
The report indicates that some members of Al-Qaida hold positions in the Taliban regime or serve as advisers in the administrative and security apparatus, giving as an example the governors of the provinces of Kapisa and Nuristan, whom it points to as members of the terrorist group. .
On the other hand, he says that the ISKP has tried to keep up the pace of attacks, interspersing some high-impact attacks with others that “provoke sectarian conflicts and destabilize the region in the medium and long term.”
According to the report, the ISKP has claimed responsibility for more than 190 suicide attacks, with more than 1,300 killed or injured, and has nearly 4,000 fighters in Afghanistan, including their families.
Like Al-Qaida, it also has training camps, mainly in the north and east of the country, five of which were built in the past year, and it also has a network of sleeper cells in the center of the country, including the capital, he noted. adds.
The document states that the ISKP is currently “the most serious terrorist threat in Afghanistan, neighboring countries and Central Asia”, stressing that, in the last year, the group “benefited from increased operational capabilities and freedom of movement” in the country. .
The content of the document was devalued by senior US officials, one of whom told Voice of America that if Al-Qaida had created training camps after the US withdrawal in August 2021, this would not go unnoticed by Washington, further questioning data on the number of Islamic State fighters.
Edmund Fitton Brown, who previously headed the UN watchdog group, claimed responsibility for the report, arguing that its content is a triangulation of all information and that it only includes information about which there is “reasonable confidence”.
Source: TSF
