Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a report on Afghanistan’s military and political situation, stated that conditions in the country remain complex and challenging, with terrorist network activity representing the primary source of instability.
In a statement published on its website on Monday, February 23, the ministry said that, according to official estimates, the total number of fighters affiliated with international terrorist groups in Afghanistan ranges between 20,000 and 23,000, more than half of whom are foreign nationals.
These groups include ISIS-Khorasan with around 3,000 fighters; Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) with between 5,000 and 7,000; al-Qaeda with 400 to 1,500; the East Turkestan Islamic Movement with 300 to 1,200; the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (which has rebranded as the “Islamic Party of Turkestan”) with 150 to 500; and Jamaat Ansarullah with 150 to 250 members.
The report states that the only terrorist group actively fighting the Taliban is ISIS’s “Khorasan Province” branch, which maintains camps and bases in eastern and northeastern Afghanistan and seeks to expand into Central Asia to establish an Islamic caliphate.
However, the report adds that this group and other terrorist networks do not pose a serious threat to the current regime and lack the capacity to seize and hold remote, hard-to-access areas.
It concludes that Afghanistan’s military-political situation remains fragile and that maintaining stability will require international attention to the country’s economic and social challenges affecting its people.
