In spite of the persistent denials by the Afghan Taliban that the terrorist groups are using their country as a safe refuge, the global consensus, backed by the evidence, is that Afghanistan continues to be a basis for violent militants and extremists.
For example, the latest edition of the UN and Qaeda Security Council reports reveals that both the TTP and the IS-K prohibited in Afghanistan with relative freedom.
In fact, with regard to this last group, the report says that IS-K represents a great threat regionally and internationally. The UN document again validates what Pakistan has been arguing for a long time: that Afghan Taliban are not doing enough to address the presence of terrorist groups in their soil, and that these outfits pose a significant challenge for regional security.
With respect to the TTP, which has been conducting terrorist attacks in Pakistan regularly, the report establishes that the team has about 6,000 combatants, and that “continued to receive … logistical and operational support” of the Afghan Taliban.
This despite the fact that some within the Afghan Taliban were of the opinion that Afghanistan de facto rulers should distance themselves from the TTP. The document also observes that the TTP maintains ties with IS-K, Al Qaeda and Baloch militants.
Interestingly, the TTP seems to be “diversifying” its options, since it has links with both Afghan Taliban and the IS-K, which oppose each other. The UN report indicates that IS-K is the most serious “regional and international threat. For this country, it must be a great concern that this dangerous group is operating” near the Pakistani border “, where it is training suicidal terrorists, which include minors.
These findings should incite the Pakistani state, regional countries, as well as the international community to address the problem of militancy in Afghanistan with prosexuality. Although the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said that there has been “better receptivity” for Pakistan’s concerns in Kabul, concrete action of the Afghan Taliban regime is needed to ensure that the popurri of terrorist groups operating from the Afghan soil do not become a global security nightmare.
While Pakistan needs to ensure its borders and make sure that TTP and IS-K terrorists cannot enter the country and find a support point here, on the other hand, Kabul must do much more to neutralize the militant threat in Afghanistan. The perspective of the TTP and IS-K union forces is terrifying, and is in the treasury of the terrorist alliance must be cut in the outbreak.
The TTP has shed innocent blood for years in this country, while the world has witnessed the horrors that the IS is able to inflict in the Middle East. Therefore, urgent action is needed to address the problem of terrorist groups in Afghanistan.
Posted in Dawn, August 4, 2025
