Afganistan'ın dinî lideri
Taliban support
THE latest UN monitoring report analysing the activities of several transnational terrorist groups is unequivocal in its assessment: the Afghan Taliban “have continued their support” to the banned TTP. Though the report says that the regime in Kabul has taken some tepid steps to control its TTP comrades, this is clearly not enough, as the continuing reign of terror orchestrated by the TTP in Pakistan shows. Moreover, the document also confirms that Taliban-ruled Afghanistan remains a safe haven for a number of lethal terrorist groups, posing a grave security challenge to regional countries. These outfits include IS-K, Al Qaeda — which includes AQIS, its Indian subcontinent arm — and ETIM. The report says that IS-K poses the biggest threat to both the Taliban regime and the broader region, despite suffering setbacks due to the kinetic action taken by Pakistan as well as Kabul. Some parts of the report deserve particular attention. For example, it says that IS-K and the banned BLA may be collaborating. Moreover, the TTP has apparently expanded its operations to Balochistan, Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. Al Qaeda has also solidified its support to the TTP, while AQIS, through the Ittehadul Mujahideen Pakistan, has stepped up its terrorist attacks in this country. Beyond Pakistan-centric groups, ETIM is active in the Wakhan corridor, which poses a direct threat to China. These findings indicate that the TTP is looking to broaden its geographical reach, while AQIS is also expanding its violent footprint. The UN report says that the Kabul regime has taken some steps to try and control the TTP. These include relocating around 2,000 terrorists and their dependants away from the Pakistan border. Moreover, it says that Afghan Taliban supremo Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada has “warned the TTP leadership … to halt attacks targeting Pakistan” or risk losing the Taliban’s support. These warnings appear to have fallen on deaf ears, as the TTP has not scaled back its bloody campaign. The fact is that ending the terrorist threat emanating from Afghanistan will take more than cosmetic steps and lukewarm warnings. If the Taliban regime wants to be taken seriously it needs to take across-the-board action against all terrorist groups on Afghan soil. They cannot pick and choose — for example, fighting IS-K but facilitating the TTP and AQIS. As we have argued earlier on these pages, a multilateral approach is required to address Afghanistan’s terrorism problem. The groups active on Afghan soil pose a threat to the entire region, not just Pakistan. Therefore, all of Afghanistan’s neighbours must send the same message to the Taliban: end support for terrorist groups. If they cooperate they can be integrated into the region; if not, the Kabul regime must be shunned by regional states until it changes its ways. Published in Dawn, August 14th, 2026
Taliban support fuels deadlier TTP attacks in Pakistan: UN
• Taliban chief reportedly warned outfit to halt attacks or risk losing support • UN report points to training links involving TTP, BLA, Al Qaeda • ISIL-K attacks decline in Afghanistan, but increase in Pakistan ISLAMABAD: The Afghan Taliban’s continued support for the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has contributed to a rise in the frequency and lethality of terrorist attacks in Pakistan, even as Kabul has taken some initial steps to rein in the group, according to a UN Security Council-mandated monitoring report. The report also points to growing operational and facilitation linkages among the TTP, Al Qaeda, Islamic State-Khorasan (ISIL-K) and the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA). The 38th report of the UN Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, covering the period from Dec 16, 2025, to June 9, 2026, said that “cross-border attacks between Pakistan and Afghanistan escalated, provoked by a high number of attacks by Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan against Pakistan”. Like previous editions, the report was unequivocal in its assessment of Kabul’s role, saying that “the de facto authorities (Taliban) continued their support to the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which escalated attacks against Pakistan, provoking military exchanges”. It noted concern among member states that the continuing conflict could create opportunities for terrorist groups and generate additional security challenges for the region. Taliban’s dual-track approach The assessment nevertheless recorded some initial steps by the Taliban authorities to contain the TTP, although these appeared aimed more at managing the group than dismantling its infrastructure. The report said Afghan authorities had relocated around 2,000 TTP fighters and their families from areas along the Pakistani border to deeper inside Afghanistan in an effort to rein in the group. It also said Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada had warned the TTP leadership through backchannel communications to halt attacks against Pakistan or risk losing Taliban support. The developments point to what appears to be a dual-track Taliban approach, continuing to provide the TTP space and support because of shared ideological ties while moving some fighters away from the border to reduce attacks on Pakistan, avoid a major escalation with Islamabad and address growing international concerns. For Pakistan, however, relocating fighters deeper inside Afghanistan would do little to address the underlying problem as long as the TTP’s command, training and logistical networks remain intact. Meanwhile, the TTP has continued to expand its organisational structure and operational reach. The report said that following its annual rahbari shura in December, the group announced a revised structure with two new divisions covering Balochistan and the central region, and Kashmir and Gilgit. The restructuring also included a new division described by the group as the “TTP Air Force”, suggesting an effort to broaden its operational capabilities. In March, the group announced in several languages its spring campaign, “Operation Khyber”, calling for increased attacks against Pakistani security forces and civilians. One of its deadliest attacks during the reporting period came on Feb 16 in Bajaur, where a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device martyred 11 security personnel and a child and wounded others. The TTP claimed responsibility and was reportedly operating from Afghanistan, the report said. Blurred lines The UN assessment also points to increasingly blurred lines between terrorist groups operating in and from Afghanistan. Al Qaeda’s official media outlet, As-Sahab Media Foundation, issued a statement on April 28 supporting the Taliban and, for the first time, backing the TTP in its operations against Pakistan. The report said that while Al Qaeda had previously provided ideological guidance, training and support to the TTP, the latest statement represented more direct backing. “One member state reported that BLA terrorists were trained along with TTP by Al Qaeda trainers in Afghanistan,” it said. The report also noted that Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) formed the backbone of Ittihadul Mujahideen Pakistan, which was reportedly involved in several attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. AQIS leadership was reported to remain in Kabul after being issued tazkiras, suggesting “close cooperation between the Taliban and AQIS”, according to the report. The assessment thus points towards a wider militant ecosystem rather than an isolated TTP problem, with training, facilitation and logistical networks increasingly cutting across organisational boundaries. ISIL-K remains another major component of the threat. The report described it as the greatest threat to the Taliban authorities and the region, despite serious setbacks suffered as a result of counterterrorism operations by Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban. ISIL-K was reported to have moved its operational infrastructure towards northern Afghanistan while dispersing training networks across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region, including Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and retaining a presence in the suburbs of Kabul. The UN report said ISIL-K was in a rebuilding phase, having shifted from attempts to hold territory to conducting fewer but high-profile, mass-casualty attacks, demonstrating resilience and adaptability. Member states reported that the group possessed modern tactical equipment, including drones, night-vision devices and thermal imagers, and had received training in urban combat and the use of drones. One member state also reported that ISIL-K and the BLA shared facilitation networks for logistics. The report said ISIL-K attacks had declined in Afghanistan but increased in Pakistan. On Feb 6, a suicide bomber detonated explosives during Friday prayers at the Khadija Tul Kubra Mosque of the Shia community in Islamabad, killing 32 people and injuring more than 150. The attack was claimed by a group calling itself ISIL in Pakistan but was likely conducted by ISIL-K, the report said. The group also claimed responsibility for the May 5 assassination of Pakistani cleric Sheikh Muhammad Idrees in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The findings suggest that the threat facing Pakistan from Afghanistan is becoming more complex, with the TTP retaining Taliban ideological and logistical support, Al Qaeda providing training and ideological backing and ISIL-K and the BLA benefiting from overlapping facilitation networks. The Taliban’s reported relocation of TTP fighters and warning to its leadership may reduce immediate pressure along the border, but the UN assessment does not suggest that Kabul has taken the more consequential step of severing its relationship with the group. Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2026
BM raporu: Taliban desteği TTP'nin Pakistan'daki saldırılarını artırdıCan Kabul hold?
The deceptive veneer of a monolithic and unyielding Taliban regime is rapidly giving way to profound structural decay, demonstrating that authoritarian societal suppression should not be conflated with institutional permanence or state capacity. Nearly five years after the fall of Kabul, the Taliban administration has reached a strategic impasse, balancing precariously on the precipice of a localised, multi-factional civil conflict. This impending instability is not merely a function of diplomatic isolation or international sanctions. Instead, it is being accelerated by an unsustainable internal economy of power, a volatile relationship with regional neighbours, and the emergence of decentralised, non-state resistance movements. Fissures within Domestically, the regime is fracturing along factional lines as the illusion of a unified command is replaced by a zero-sum power struggle between two competing power centres. On one side stands the radical Kandahar faction, a hyper-conservative clerical elite gathered around Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, which clashes directly with the militarised Kabul faction led by figures like Sirajuddin Haqqani, who oversee day-to-day governance. Kandahar’s insistence on absolute ideological conformity and the centralisation of fiscal allocations has deeply alienated the field commanders responsible for winning the insurgency, privatising and paralysing the state’s administrative capacity while reducing the economy to a state of artificial survival dependent on illicit trade and irregular humanitarian inflows. This growing internal pressure is further compounded by a consolidating political opposition that directly rejects the Taliban’s claims of absolute control and popular legitimacy. Ahmad Massoud, the leader of the National Resistance Front (NRF), has challenged the regime’s narrative, explicitly dismissing the claim that anti-Taliban forces are fragmented or disconnected from the Afghan masses. Massoud posits that the fundamental path toward resolving the Afghan crisis reduces to a singular, foundational principle: returning the executive right to make decisions directly to the Afghan people. In his assessment, true national unity cannot be built upon a foundation of silence, fear, or the forced structural conformity imposed by the Taliban. Instead, a durable state architecture requires a system grounded in justice, mutual respect, and an institutional acceptance of Afghanistan’s diverse ethnic and cultural tapestry. Hence, the Taliban’s internal security architecture is increasingly challenged by a dual-layered opposition consisting of distinct factions deploying radically divergent operational strategies. While Ahmad Massoud’s NRF represents the formal, institutional wing of the resistance, drawing its lineage from the old political guard and maintaining a conventional military footprint in the northern valleys of Panjshir, Takhar, and Badakhshan, groups like Pasiban-i-Watan (Guardians of the Homeland) and the newer Sepahian-i-Mihan (Soldiers of the Homeland) operate as decentralised, grassroots phenomena. This forces the Taliban to simultaneously defend geographic frontiers in the north against the NRF and combat asymmetric sabotage from decentralised networks, overextending the regime’s security apparatus. A foreign policy blunder On the regional front, the failure of the Taliban’s foreign policy manifests in the collapse of its relationship with Pakistan, which further exposes its internal weaknesses. For decades, Islamabad served as a vital geopolitical corridor for Kabul, yet upon assuming power, the Taliban prioritised ideological solidarity with transnational militant networks over the strategic necessities of state-to-state bilateralism. By providing operational sanctuary, material support, and intelligence access to the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terror outfit , the regime has enabled the group to execute lethal cross-border offensives, including incursions into regions like Chitral and sustained attacks across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. Recognising that the Taliban regime cannot or will not honour its counterterrorism obligations under regional frameworks, Islamabad has dismantled its policy of strategic patience in favour of kinetic deterrence and direct coercion. Following escalations in cross-border militancy, Pakistan initiated military actions, including Operation Ghazab lil-Haq, deploying targeted cross-border airstrikes against militant infrastructure. In response, Taliban officials have weaponised nationalist sentiment by rejecting the legitimacy of the Durand Line frontier and dismantling border fencing. This territorial defiance has led to sustained ground skirmishes at vital trade links like the Torkham crossing, disrupting regional commerce. Concurrently, the Taliban have accelerated diplomatic and strategic engagement with New Delhi, compounding Islamabad’s concerns vis-à-vis a revived two-front security threat. Russia’s pragmatic approach Desperate for external legitimacy to mitigate its domestic vulnerabilities, Kabul has also leveraged its diplomatic engagement with Moscow as evidence of international integration. Russia’s steps toward formal diplomatic engagement, including the removal of the Taliban from its official list of banned terrorist organisations, have been framed by Kabul as a major foreign policy success. However, despite its technical-military cooperation agreement, Moscow’s approach is transactional, born of realpolitik rather than genuine diplomatic trust, viewing the Taliban as a buffer against the regional expansion of the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) terror group. Within Kremlin, pragmatic engagement with Kabul coexists with deep skepticism over the Taliban’s long-term capability and strategic intent. Russian analyst Andrei Serenko, head of the Russian Centre for Contemporary Afghanistan Studies, has drawn attention to the internal vulnerabilities of the Taliban rule and the emergence of new resistance dynamics that could further complicate Afghanistan’s security landscape and ultimately regional peace and stability. Taliban’s continued ties with regional radical groups, including the TTP, which Russia also has designated as a terrorist organisation, heavily cloud Moscow’s strategic calculations. This is a central paradox confronting Russia’s Afghan policy: Moscow requires a sufficiently stable authority in Kabul to contain the IS-K, and facilitate its broader Eurasian ambitions, yet the durability of that authority is increasingly tested by internal factionalism, political resistance, decentralised terrorist networks, and deteriorating relations with Pakistan. Ultimately, the Taliban regime is trapped between a deeply aggrieved neighbour to the east, mounting domestic resistance from within, and cautious partners to the north. The current stability in Afghanistan may therefore prove more fragile than territorial control suggests. Unless it shifts away from ideological rigidity and addresses political, security, and regional contradictions accumulating beneath its rule, Afghanistan risks sliding once again toward fragmented sovereignty and conflict.
Kabil düştükten beş yıl sonra Taliban rejimi stratejik çıkmazda