Saif al-Adl, the current leader of the Al-Qaeda network, has urged his fighters and supporters worldwide to travel to Afghanistan, under Taliban control, to gain military experience and training. According to media reports, Saif al-Islam, in a recent document attributed to him, has continued to instruct his followers to draw inspiration from the Taliban in Afghanistan and to continue the fight against Westerners and attacks on Zionists. In this document, several significant points are highlighted, which are elaborated upon here.
Firstly, this move marks one of the most significant actions by Al-Qaeda in recent years. After the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, followed by the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda lost its most important sanctuary and command center, and its leaders scattered. Ten years later, in May 2011, then-President of the United States, Barack Obama, announced that Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda, had been killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by American military forces, and his body disposed of at sea. During the period when bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan, Al-Qaeda was not very active. The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in retaliation for the September 11, 2001 attacks, ousted the Taliban and severely weakened Al-Qaeda, but did not destroy it. When bin Laden was killed, the main question was whether Al-Qaeda would survive or die with him. However, Al-Qaeda survived, and under the leadership of Ayman al-Zawahiri, it kept itself alive until the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban, Al-Qaeda’s main ally, took over the country. Al-Zawahiri came to Kabul and stayed at the Taliban’s Ministry of Interior guesthouse, but a U.S. drone targeted and killed him. After that, the leadership of Al-Qaeda passed to Saif al-Islam, a former Egyptian army officer accused of involvement in Al-Qaeda attacks on U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. Now, in his new document, he has issued a global call to recruit fighters for his group and bring them to Afghanistan for training. This could be the most significant move by Al-Qaeda since the September 11 attacks and subsequent U.S. invasion. Saif al-Adl’s call, implying a resurgence of Al-Qaeda, or at least an attempt at it, under the Taliban’s flag, does not seem to have happened without Taliban cooperation.
Secondly, the crucial point lies in the presence of Al-Qaeda’s sanctuary and bases in Afghanistan. Saif al-Adl’s call, apparently issued from Afghanistan, confirms reports that the country has turned into a haven for terrorists, with Al-Qaeda establishing its military and training bases in eight Afghan provinces. According to a report by the United Nations Security Council released in January 2024, Al-Qaeda has a presence in eight Afghan provinces and has built an arsenal in the province of Panjsher. The UN Security Council report had mentioned Al-Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan at that time, but now this presence has become more serious, and the leadership of Al-Qaeda has issued a call to recruit fighters. The influx of Al-Qaeda fighters into Afghanistan, to receive military training and, as Saif al-Adl claims, to draw inspiration from the Taliban’s fight in Afghanistan, poses a significant danger to the country.
The presence of terrorist groups in Afghanistan, alongside other harms, preys on the youth and teenagers, enticing them to join these groups. After the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, the situation regarding education and the economy has become dire. Poverty and hunger on one hand, and the Taliban’s destruction of the country’s education system on the other, have left many young people hopeless about their educational future. Those who are deprived of education, especially teenagers born and raised in Taliban-controlled areas, are susceptible to joining terrorist groups. These groups exploit them as cannon fodder and turn them into human weapons, a practice also carried out by the Taliban. The establishment of thousands of religious schools and dozens of jihadist schools facilitates the recruitment process by terrorist groups. Another harm is the possibility of military clashes between different terrorist groups in the country. According to a United Nations report, at least 20 terrorist groups in Afghanistan are under Taliban control. They possess their armed forces in Afghanistan and may someday break free from Taliban control. If conflicting interests arise among these groups, the possibility of bloody military conflicts exists, in which case the people of Afghanistan will also suffer greatly, and their wars will destroy infrastructure and facilities.
Thirdly, the pattern of emulation from the Taliban is evident. The resurgence of Taliban rule in Afghanistan has motivated all suppressed terrorist groups to regroup, stabilize their situation, and strive for power like the Taliban. The fall of the government to the Taliban and now, as countries over the past three years have been seeking ways to engage with this group, terrorist groups have concluded that they too can incite slaughter and bloodshed, topple governments through terrorist activities, and force the world to engage with them, even the United Nations as an international human rights advocate. Saif al-Adl, in his call, addressed his supporters, stating, “I explicitly say that the loyal people of the Islamic Ummah interested in change should go to Afghanistan, learn from its conditions, and benefit from the experiences of the Islamic Emirate [Taliban].” Undoubtedly, the Taliban will not hesitate to share their combat experiences with their terrorist allies, and Al-Qaeda has been the Taliban’s most important ally during the three decades of its existence.
Fourthly, the depth and strength of the Taliban’s bond with Al-Qaeda are significant. Just as Al-Qaeda pledged allegiance to Mullah Omar, the leader and founder of the Taliban movement, in the late 1990s, this time, when the Taliban under the leadership of Mullah Hibatullah regained power, they renewed their allegiance. This renewal of allegiance took place in the early days of the Taliban’s return to power, while Ayman al-Zawahiri was still alive and leading Al-Qaeda. According to reports from the United Nations and other domestic and international bodies, Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan controls several military schools and shelters under the Taliban’s control, with two of its members in the Taliban emirates of Kapisa and Nuristan. It owns safe houses, controls and manages a media outlet in Herat, and several of its members work as advisors to the Taliban emirate and benefit from Afghanistan’s mines. According to a Foreign Policy report published in early 2024, the Taliban gave Al-Qaeda 25% of the revenue from the gold mines in Badakhshan and Takhar. On the other hand, the Taliban’s Ministry of Defense teaches ISIS network educational materials to its fighters, indicating the closeness between the two groups.
The reason Saif al-Adl has called fighters to Afghanistan in his document is that Afghanistan provides all the necessary conditions for the activities of terrorist groups, and some terrorist groups, including Al-Qaeda, receive comprehensive support from the Taliban. A terrorist group needs a base, fighters, money, and motivation to strengthen its ranks, all of which Al-Qaeda obtains under the Taliban’s flag. Various bases are already at its disposal, it obtains money from the sale of Afghanistan’s minerals and possibly through several other means, recruits fighters from Taliban’s religious and jihadist schools, and gains motivation from the Taliban’s resurgence after years of isolation and defeat. The recruitment of fighters from around the world, as addressed in Saif al-Adl’s call, can be combined with Afghanistan’s mineral wealth to create a significant global incident if Afghanistan continues to be controlled by a terrorist group as an intelligence and security hub. Emphasizing the establishment of communication with the Taliban under the guise of “engagement” by countries and international organizations also helps bolster the motivation of terrorist groups, including Al-Qaeda.
You can read the Persian version of this analysis here:
چرا سیف العدل اعضای القاعده را به افغانستان فراخوانده است؟ | روزنامه ۸صبح
