They said that ISIS, al-Qaeda, and their affiliates remain active, with ISIS-Khorasan being one of the group’s most active branches.
The United Nations Security Council held a meeting marking the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
Representatives of several countries said at the meeting that 25 years later, the threat of terrorism has not disappeared and that terrorist groups have expanded the scope of their activities by changing their operational methods.
They said that ISIS, al-Qaeda, and their affiliates remain active, with ISIS-Khorasan being one of the group’s most active branches.
Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s representative, said: “ISIS-Khorasan in Afghanistan remains a serious threat, and the problem of foreign terrorist fighters who are able to transfer their battlefield experience from one region to another also persists.”
Jérôme Bonnafont, France’s representative, said: “In the Middle East, terrorist groups have taken advantage of every opportunity to establish safe havens for themselves in Afghanistan. ISIS-Khorasan is one of the most active branches of this organization.”
China’s representative at the meeting called on the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan to effectively combat terrorist groups and prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming a breeding ground for terrorism.
Sun Lei, China’s representative, said: “The Afghan government should also adapt to the situation, effectively combat all terrorist forces in Afghanistan, including the Pakistani Taliban and the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, and resolutely prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming a breeding ground for terrorism.”
Pakistan claimed at the meeting that Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) operate from safe havens in Afghanistan.
Asim Iftikhar, Pakistan’s representative, said: “Terrorism in various geographical regions, including Africa, which my colleague from Liberia elaborated on, the Middle East, and in our own neighborhood, Afghanistan, is deeply concerning.”
In response to these remarks, the Interior Ministry spokesman said Afghanistan’s territory is secure and that all groups in Afghanistan were suppressed during the first years of the Islamic Emirate.
Abdul Matin Qani, spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said: “In the first, second, and third years, we eliminated all groups and factions that opposed the system, posed threats to internal and cross-border security, or had previously expanded their presence here.”
The Islamic Emirate has previously described security concerns stemming from Afghanistan as unfounded.
The terror organization and its offshoots have set up at least eight training sites over the past three years, taking advantage of the Taliban’s return to power.
Al-Qaeda’s plans for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks took root in dusty, mud-walled compounds in Afghanistan that served for years as terrorist training camps.
A quarter-century later — despite decades of U.S. military and counterterrorism operations aimed at eradicating those strongholds — al-Qaeda is again operating training camps in Afghanistan, according to U.S. and Western intelligence officials and a United Nations organization responsible for monitoring terror networks.
The terror organization and its offshoots have set up at least eight training sites over the past three years, taking advantage of the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul and the security void created by the 2021 U.S. military withdrawal, according to U.N. reports and security officials.
Other terror groups, including an affiliate of the Islamic State, al-Qaeda’s main rival, also have set up new training sites, officials said, giving militant Islamist groups a foothold in at least 14 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.
These officials and others in this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.
Because the Taliban has again provided “a permissive environment,” a U.N. report said, al-Qaeda has been able “to consolidate, with the presence of safe houses and training camps across Afghanistan.”
There are notable differences from the pre-9/11 period, officials and counterterrorism experts said.
The groups now training in Afghanistan seem more focused on regional fights than mounting elaborate plots against the United States or its allies. They appear to be constrained by Taliban hosts wary of again drawing the wrath of global powers. And with al-Qaeda’s top leaders still believed to be hiding in Iran or elsewhere, no Osama bin Laden-like figure has emerged to galvanize followers.
Even so, the reappearance of training camps is a cause of growing concern.
“They’re not following the pre-9/11 game plan of going after the far enemy,” said Bruce Hoffman, a counterterrorism expert at Georgetown University. “But I think they hope that with local and regional gains they can start to rebuild momentum. They haven’t forgotten us.”
The U.S.’s failure to dismantle al-Qaeda’s training camps in the 1990s still looms as one of the major missed opportunities to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks.
The idea of flying hijacked planes into U.S. buildings was first proposed by 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in 1996 at an al-Qaeda complex in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, according to the U.S.’s 9/11 Commission.
Bin Laden later approved the operation at a site near Kandahar. Before storming the cockpits of four transatlantic flights, all 19 of the hijackers had spent time at al-Qaeda camps or safe houses in Afghanistan.
U.N. and other security officials said they had recently investigated claims that al-Qaeda was seeking to re-establish a presence at Tarnak Farms, a sprawling compound near the Kandahar airport where one of the first CIA Predator drone surveillance flights caught a pre-9/11 glimpse of bin Laden. A Washington Post examination of satellite imagery found no visible sign of resumed activity at Tarnak.
The new camps are being used to train fighters on weapons, explosives and guerrilla tactics that would be familiar to the thousands of recruits who passed through al-Qaeda’s camps in the 1990s, officials said. But they also cited indications of instruction on the use of encryption, artificial intelligence, drones and other technologies that were in their infancy in 2001.
The number of militants in Afghanistan considered part of core al-Qaeda, the parent group that spawned affiliates and imitators, is probably 100 or fewer, said Colin Smith, coordinator of a U.N. monitoring team that tracks the threat posed by terror groups and oversees international sanctions on them.
Instead of spearheading operations, “we’ve seen al-Qaeda acting as a consulting service for other groups,” Smith said. “Giving them advice and training on things like covert operations and information security.”
The arrangement has put core al-Qaeda in a supporting role to larger affiliates including Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, a group that seeks to overthrow the government in Pakistan and establish an Islamic state.
A U.N. report in 2024 said that al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan’s Kunar province were “conducting suicide bomber training for TTP.”
The Pakistan-focused group is believed to have as many as 7,000 fighters in Afghanistan, Smith said. U.N. reports said that TTP had established camps in at least four Afghan provinces “with al-Qaeda and Taliban involvement,” and that the group has carried out hundreds of cross-border attacks on Pakistani military outposts and other targets.
Al-Qaeda’s main rival has also worked to establish a foothold in Afghanistan. An Islamic State affiliate known as Islamic State-Khorasan, for the historical region of Khorasan, has attracted about 2,000 recruits and used northern Afghanistan as its “main hub” for training and planning operations across Central Asia, according to officials and U.N. reports.
Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State remain fierce rivals, fighting for dominance of the jihadist movement and overseeing splinter groups that compete with one another, officials said.
Both groups seem focused mainly on recruiting operatives from within Afghanistan or neighboring states, unlike in the 1990s when al-Qaeda attracted thousands of foreign fighters from Saudi Arabia — where 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were from — and other Middle Eastern countries.
“What I’ve seen from al-Qaeda media suggest that they’re not really looking for foreign fighters right now,” said Sara Harmouch, a terrorism expert at George Washington University who tracks the group’s propaganda and social media messages. “They don’t want eyes on them as they try to rebuild these capabilities.”
U.S. and other security officials said that their ability to monitor the new training camps has been hampered by a drawdown in CIA personnel and other U.S. intelligence capabilities that accompanied the 2021 military withdrawal. The U.S. has since shifted resources to the war in Iran and other priorities.
Even so, the killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri, who succeeded bin Laden as al-Qaeda’s leader, in a 2022 drone strike in Kabul showed that the U.S. has intelligence and strike capabilities that survived the chaotic pullout of U.S. forces.
Al-Qaeda is now led by Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian, who spent years helping to run training camps in Afghanistan after his 1988 arrival. But al-Adel is believed to remain in hiding in Iran, officials said, underscoring the organization’s concern about security in its former stronghold.
Terror watch lists, travel surveillance and other security measures adopted after 9/11 would likely put any visitor to Afghanistan’s training camps under intense scrutiny, officials said. Instead, al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have sought to recruit operatives online and urged sympathizers in Western countries to stay in place for “lone wolf” operations.
Many of these plots have been disrupted. In a recent case, a 35-year-old woman in Albany, New York, was arrested last month and charged by the Justice Department with pursing an “ISIS-inspired” terror plot to bomb the state capitol.
Jarrett Ley contributed to this report.
Al-Qaeda regroups in Afghanistan, 25 years after 9/11
The Taliban claim that Afghanistan is no longer a sanctuary for terrorist groups, but Al Qaeda and others are still present, reviving old fears.
Twenty five years ago, Osama bin Laden led the planning of Al Qaeda’s attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, from a Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan, where he lived as their guest.
Now, the Taliban rule over Afghanistan once again, trying to present a more modern face to the world.
But despite the veneer, the Taliban have not changed their ideology, and armed groups, including dozens of Qaeda members, remain in Afghanistan. Many of the conditions that made the Sept. 11 attacks possible remain.
The Taliban outlasted the American war to oust them and are now ruling over 45 million Afghans. They use the latest iPhones to contact European and American diplomats. They travel to the Persian Gulf and Turkey, and promote trade with Uzbekistan and India. Their fighters now patrol Afghanistan’s cities, some using abandoned U.S. military gear.
And when Taliban officials receive foreign visitors in their gilded offices in Kabul, the capital, they insist that they want peaceful relations with the world. They repeat the commitments they made in 2020, during peace talks with the United States, not to allow another major attack to take root on Afghan soil.
“We consider the chapter of war to have come to an end,” Afghanistan’s foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, said in a recent interview in Kabul.
But the United States, the European Union and most other governments are not ready to trust them.
Their promises about security are similar to the ones Mullah Muhammad Omar, then the Taliban’s leader, made months before 9/11, when he told a journalist that bin Laden “does not operate against anyone from the soil of Afghanistan.”
Al Qaeda and other militant groups remain in Afghanistan, although without a leader as powerful as bin Laden and without their past influence over the Taliban.
And there is a troubling intelligence vacuum. Security officials and diplomats acknowledge that they lack the full picture of what is happening inside Afghanistan. It has again become a dark room where, they warn, new threats could emerge unnoticed.
What Security Means Now
In conversation, Afghans often describe life in their country by what it is no longer: at war. Roads are safe. Mining deals are welcome. The sound of gunfire is less common. Civilians are no longer in constant danger of being killed by drones or crossfire, though the threat from unexploded devices remains. Kabul has seen an influx of new money and new restaurants that mimic the glitter of Dubai.
That is the Taliban’s message: Calm, not chaos, permeates Afghanistan.
But that is only one part of the story. Extremist armed groups still have a home in Afghanistan, according to the United States, China, Russia and the United Nations.
The militant threat in Afghanistan is much less significant and visible than in the years leading up to 9/11, experts and security officials say, when up to 30,000 militants and fighters were in the country.
Still, United Nations experts estimate that 15,000 to 20,000 militants are scattered among about 20 groups in Afghanistan. Russia says they could number up to 23,000.
Al Qaeda has only a few dozen members, according to estimates from the United Nations and security experts, but some of them live freely in Kabul. The Afghan authorities have issued national identity cards to the leadership of Al Qaeda’s South Asian branch, according to the United Nations’ group of experts monitoring terrorist networks.
Thousands of Islamic State militants also roam the rugged borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Most numerous are the thousands of militants from Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, known as the Pakistani Taliban, or T.T.P., who navigate the porous border to stage attacks on Pakistani security forces. Security experts and officials attribute a sharp increase in attacks on Pakistan to the permissive environment provided by the Afghan Taliban since 2021.
Though in far lower numbers than in the 1990s, foreign fighters have also recently traveled to Afghanistan from Syria and Somalia. er the vestiges of fli
The Taliban in Afghanistan deny backing the Pakistani Taliban but privately say that they could not rein in the group even if they wanted to.
Pakistan has been a close ally of the United States under President Trump, and the United States has accused the Taliban of breaking their counterterrorism promises. Even China, long a staunch supporter of pragmatic engagement with the Taliban, has urged the group to “resolutely eliminate all terrorist forces.” The European Union wants it “to do more to convince the world that Afghanistan is not a potential threat.”
Intelligence Diplomacy
The continued presence of thousands of militants is one of the main reasons for the Taliban’s continued isolation from the rest of the world. Most security analysts believe that they pose a threat mainly to the region, not the West, but Al Qaeda and the Islamic State still promote a global ideology.
The Taliban claim they work closely with foreign intelligence services to fend off the Islamic State’s regional affiliate, ISIS-K. A senior Afghan intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss national security matters, called this “intelligence diplomacy.”
The two groups are enemies because ISIS-K adheres to an extremist jihadist ideology that views the Taliban as apostates for accommodating religious minorities and seeking international engagement. ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the attack near the Kabul airport during the U.S. withdrawal in August 2021 that killed 13 U.S. troops and more than 170 Afghan civilians. It has repeatedly targeted Shiite communities in Afghanistan and has claimed deadly attacks in Kabul and Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, this year.
The Taliban have deployed special forces teams to infiltrate areas controlled by the Islamic State, according to Antonio Giustozzi, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London who follows militant groups in the region.
Experts and security officials say ISIS-K no longer has the capacity to mount a large-scale assault. They attribute this to the work of the Taliban and Pakistan, as well as a broader loss of momentum by the group.
“Kabul, to its credit, is waging a fierce armed struggle against Islamic State,” Sergei K. Shoigu, Russia’s former defense minister and now the secretary of its Security Council, said earlier this year.
The Taliban’s relationship with Al Qaeda is of another nature.
U.S. counterterrorism officials have in recent years called Afghanistan a “nursing home” for Al Qaeda’s senior members and defined the Qaeda threat from the country as being at its “lowest point” in decades.
But its influence persists.
Al Qaeda never abandoned the Taliban during their 20-year insurgency, and the Taliban have not abandoned Al Qaeda in power.
A few dozen Qaeda members remain in Kabul and along the Pakistani border, training the Pakistani Taliban, according to the United Nations’ monitoring group on terrorist networks.
“The exact role of Al Qaeda Afghanistan? It’s very hard to say,” said Colin Smith, the coordinator of the U.N. group, which collects information from more than 40 intelligence agencies for its biannual reports.
In April, Al Qaeda declared support for the Pakistani Taliban and renewed its endorsement of the Taliban government in Kabul, hailing the group as “a modern role model.” By backing the Taliban, Al Qaeda is buying time and space in Afghanistan, Mr. Giustozzi said.
Cumbersome Allies
The Taliban’s relationship with militant groups keeps alive a long-running debate: Are the Taliban an insurgent group engaged in statecraft; a state-ruling entity that hasn’t shed its insurgent past; or a mix of both?
That uncertainty reflects the balancing act at the heart of the Taliban’s survival. Allowing Afghanistan to serve as a launchpad for international terrorism is not in the Taliban’s interest — as they learned after 9/11. But out of hospitality, ideological zeal and a lack of resources, they have so far been unable, and in part unwilling, to expel them.
The Pakistani Taliban are forcing the Taliban to face the consequences. The two fought side by side during the U.S.-led war, and the Pakistani Taliban now expect a return on investment: support to establish a similar stronghold in Pakistan.
If the Taliban withdraw support to their Pakistani counterparts, they risk seeing more of their disgruntled fighters join the Pakistani Taliban. Most of the Taliban’s rank and file now control checkpoints and patrol cities. The Pakistani Taliban are offering a new jihad, right next door.
“We sacrificed our generation to bring peace,” said Farhad Sangari, the Taliban commander of a special forces unit in Kabul, on a recent evening as he led a traffic patrol. He added, “I miss the memories of jihad and the front line.”
Many experts and security officials also fear that the vast network of religious schools that has expanded across Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover is teaching a violent, expansionist agenda.
“How many hundreds of thousands of men have been exposed to the Taliban ideology glorifying jihad?” said Michael Semple, a longtime Afghanistan expert at Queen’s University Belfast.
Afghans are now living with a situation they haven’t faced in decades. They are somewhat safe at home, but Afghanistan is once again exporting insecurity.
The Return of Gunfire
Whatever its exact nature, the relationship between the Taliban and militant groups now threatens to destabilize Afghanistan.
A senior Pakistani intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss national security matters, said his country’s leadership had concluded Pakistan’s domestic security would not improve until it “sorted out” the Taliban. Over the past few months, Taliban officials have grown increasingly concerned about the possibility of a Pakistani-backed attempt at regime change in Afghanistan.
Anti-Taliban resistance groups waiting in the wings now see an opportunity. Three groups, led by former members of the U.S.-backed Afghan military, have claimed responsibility for more than 50 attacks on Taliban officials, checkpoints and buildings across Afghanistan since July.
The leader of one of them, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the attacks, described them in an interview as targets of opportunity, aimed at cracking the veneer of security that the Taliban have so far maintained.
The scattered attacks do not yet pose a regime-ending threat, but at least two local officials have been killed by anti-Taliban forces in recent weeks.
They are another reminder that in Afghanistan, war is not yet a distant memory.
25 Years After 9/11, Al Qaeda Still Has a Home in Afghanistan
A UN sanctions monitoring team said in a report dated August 10 that Al-Qaeda’s position and capabilities in Afghanistan have remained unchanged under Taliban rule. The terrorist threat emanating from the country has also generally remained unchanged, while the ability of numerous groups to operate poses a lasting danger to neighboring states and Central Asia, the Jerusalem Post reports.
Support for Pakistani Taliban
According to the report, Al-Qaeda provided ideological guidance, training and support to the Pakistani Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan movement in its insurgent activities against Pakistan. On April 28, the group’s media arm, As-Sahab Media Foundation, released a statement supporting the Taliban and, for the first time, the Pakistani Taliban in their operations against Pakistan.
Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, according to the UN’s assessment, has transformed from a fragmented group into a regional terrorist structure. It has created logistical and financial networks operating through decentralized and dispersed cells rather than large units. The report also states that the group’s leaders are in Kabul and have received Afghan identity documents — tazkiras — which may indicate close cooperation with the Taliban.
Differing assessments of the threat
Analyst Alex Mishra told the publication that 25 years after the September 11 attacks, Al-Qaeda has a greater territorial presence on three continents than at any time since its founding. In his view, the group’s lower public activity does not mean that it has disappeared or been defeated.
More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.
Former Pakistani special representative for Afghanistan Asif Durrani, by contrast, believes that Al-Qaeda has lost influence and appeal, while the Islamic State group has become the more prominent jihadist threat. Afghan affairs expert Kamal Alam said that Al-Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan is at its highest level since the Taliban returned to power in 2021. He recalled the killing of Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul after the Taliban seized power.
The Taliban’s position and the Mohammed case
The Taliban’s chief spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, rejected Afghanistan’s responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks and said that the organizers allegedly received training, housing and logistical support outside the country. He also claims that the current authorities do not allow foreign armed groups to operate in Afghanistan and do not shelter foreign organizations.
The publication also recalls the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, whom U.S. authorities call the alleged organizer of the September 11 attacks. He was detained in Pakistan in 2003 and transferred to Guantanamo in 2006. A military judge set the start of his trial with three co-defendants for June 5, 2028.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres marked the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on Friday by paying tribute to nearly 3,000 victims and urging the international community to remain united in combating terrorism through cooperation and international law.
In a statement commemorating the attacks, Guterres said the world remembers the victims from the United States and more than 90 other countries who lost their lives in the coordinated attacks on September 11, 2001. He said the United Nations stands in solidarity with their families, survivors, and all those whose lives were permanently changed by the tragedy.
The UN chief also honored the first responders, firefighters, police officers, medical personnel, and volunteers who risked their lives during rescue operations at New York’s World Trade Center after the attacks destroyed the Twin Towers.
“We stand with the people of New York, the people of the United States, and everyone whose lives were forever affected by the events of September 11,” Guterres said, describing the anniversary as a moment of remembrance and renewed commitment to peace and security.
Guterres noted that 2026 also marks the 20th anniversary of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, adopted unanimously by UN member states in 2006 as the first global framework for preventing and combating terrorism while protecting human rights and the rule of law.
He said the strategy remains a cornerstone of international cooperation against terrorism, emphasizing that counterterrorism efforts must address the conditions that fuel violent extremism while safeguarding fundamental freedoms.
The secretary-general warned that terrorism continues to threaten civilians across multiple regions, despite significant progress in dismantling terrorist networks over the past two decades. He said the evolving nature of terrorism, including cross-border extremist groups and online radicalization, requires sustained international cooperation.
Guterres stressed that defeating terrorism is a “shared and unfinished responsibility” that demands continued collaboration among governments, international organizations, and civil society to prevent attacks and support victims.
The September 11, 2001, attacks, carried out by al-Qaeda, killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. The attacks reshaped global security policy and led to two decades of U.S.-led military operations in Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda had been based under Taliban rule.
Twenty-five years later, the UN says honoring the victims also means strengthening international efforts to prevent terrorism while upholding international law, human rights, and accountability.
UN Chief Marks 25 Years Since 9/11, Urges Global Unity Against Terrorism
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the United States used the international response to the September 11, 2001 attacks to expand its geopolitical influence in Afghanistan and other regions, arguing that Washington’s military interventions went far beyond the fight against terrorism.
Speaking in an interview with Russian media outlet RBC on Wednesday, Lavrov accused the United States of exploiting the global solidarity that followed the 9/11 attacks and the UN Security Council resolutions adopted afterward to pursue broader strategic objectives. He said Washington’s military campaign was aimed not only at defeating terrorist groups but also at strengthening its political and military presence in key regions.
“The United States used that international solidarity and the UN resolution authorizing military operations not so much to fight terrorism as to implement geopolitical plans and expand its influence,” Lavrov said, according to the interview.
Lavrov argued that the same approach later appeared in other conflicts, including Iraq and Libya, where he said the United States pursued regime change and strategic influence under the banner of counterterrorism or international security.
His remarks come as Russia has increasingly criticized U.S. foreign policy and NATO’s role in global conflicts, particularly amid heightened tensions between Moscow and Western governments over Ukraine and broader international security issues.
The United States invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 after al-Qaeda carried out the September 11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Washington said the military operation was aimed at dismantling al-Qaeda and removing the Taliban government for sheltering Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders.
The U.S.-led military presence in Afghanistan lasted nearly two decades before American and NATO forces withdrew in August 2021, paving the way for the Taliban’s return to power. Since then, Russia has expanded diplomatic engagement with the Taliban authorities while continuing to argue that Western intervention left Afghanistan politically unstable.
Lavrov’s comments reflect Moscow’s longstanding narrative that U.S. military interventions were driven by geopolitical ambitions rather than solely by counterterrorism objectives. Washington has consistently maintained that its operations in Afghanistan were launched in response to the 9/11 attacks and were focused on preventing future terrorist threats.
The September 11 attacks remain one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in modern history. Two hijacked airliners struck the World Trade Center in New York, a third crashed into the Pentagon, and a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers resisted the hijackers, according to official U.S. accounts.
Lavrov Says US Used Afghanistan Presence to Advance Geopolitical Goals, Not Just Fight Terrorism
Following the attacks, the United States held Al-Qaeda responsible and launched military operations in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001.
September 11 marked the beginning of a new era for Afghanistan—one characterized by the arrival of foreign forces, a change in the political system, and a 20-year war.
Following the attacks, the United States held Al-Qaeda responsible and launched military operations in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001.
Akhtar Rasekh, a political analyst, said: “This plan was organized and orchestrated by the US CIA. The claim that Osama bin Laden carried out this act was used as a pretext. They themselves transferred Osama bin Laden from Saudi Arabia to Peshawar and organized and armed him against the Soviet Union. Osama played an active role in the killing of supporters of the Soviet Union.”
Following this, the international presence in Afghanistan expanded. Forces from the United States, Britain, Germany, Canada, France, Italy, Türkiye, and dozens of other countries entered Afghanistan as part of the coalition and NATO mission.
At its peak, more than 50 countries were members or partners of the ISAF mission, with the number of troops exceeding 130,000.
Shah Sawar Sangarwal, a historian, said: “During these two decades, Afghanistan suffered extensive losses in all sectors. Many people were killed and wounded, and a large number of citizens fled the country. The ‘Mother of All Bombs’ was also used in Afghanistan.”
According to figures from the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), at least 66,000 Afghan security personnel and more than 48,000 civilians were killed since 2001.
Aziz Maarij, an international relations analyst, said: “The September 11 attacks were an intelligence and political plan through which the United States sought to establish a presence in Afghanistan and the region and threaten its rivals, including Russia, China, and Iran. But when it came, it faced resistance, was also blamed, and failed to achieve its objectives.”
The financial cost of the US presence was also substantial. By 2021, the US Department of Defense had spent more than $837 billion on the war and nearly $145 billion on Afghanistan’s reconstruction.
However, the Islamic Emirate says Afghanistan had no role in the September 11 attacks and that the subsequent attack on the country was unjustifiable.
Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesperson for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, said: “The events of September 11 had nothing to do with Afghanistan, and we have repeatedly emphasized this. The September 11 attacks involved the use of extensive capabilities that Afghanistan did not possess at the time.”
The military presence of the United States and its allies ultimately ended in August 2021, and the Islamic Emirate returned to power in Afghanistan.
9/11: Two Decades of War and Foreign Presence in Afghanistan
On that day, four passenger planes were hijacked in the United States.
Today marks 25 years since the September 11, 2001 attacks, which not only changed the course of US foreign and security policy but also triggered a war in Afghanistan that lasted nearly two decades.
On that day, four passenger planes were hijacked in the United States. Two of the planes struck the World Trade Center towers in New York shortly before 9 a.m., and both towers collapsed hours later.
A third plane struck the Pentagon, the headquarters of the US Department of Defense, near Washington, while the fourth plane, which was believed to be targeting the US Capitol, crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers resisted the hijackers.
George W. Bush said: “Make no mistake: The United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts.”
Nearly 3,000 people from 90 countries were killed in the attacks, and about 25,000 others were injured. Al-Qaeda was held responsible for the attacks, after which Washington made the fight against terrorism a central part of its security policy.
A few weeks after the attacks, US forces, backed by British troops, launched military operations in Afghanistan. The operation began on October 7, 2001, with the stated aim of fighting the Al-Qaeda network.
Following the fall of the government at the time, a new political process took shape in Afghanistan. After the Bonn Agreement was reached on December 5 of that year, Hamid Karzai was selected to head Afghanistan’s interim administration.
The US and NATO military presence in Afghanistan continued for nearly two decades. During this period, the number of US troops increased or decreased depending on the conditions of the war.
In 2011, Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and then-US President Barack Obama ordered the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan.
Barack Obama said at the time: “The United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda.”
In 2014, the combat mission of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan ended, and primary responsibility for the war was handed over to the security forces of the then-Afghan government. However, in the years that followed, attacks by the Islamic Emirate intensified, and fighting continued in various parts of the country.
After Donald Trump took office, Zalmay Khalilzad was appointed US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation. Negotiations between the United States and the Taliban eventually led to the signing of the Doha Agreement in 2020.
Under the agreement, the United States committed to withdrawing its forces from Afghanistan, with May 2021 set as the deadline for the complete withdrawal of US troops.
The withdrawal of foreign forces subsequently accelerated. In 2021, provinces came under the control of the Islamic Emirate one after another. Finally, after former President Ashraf Ghani left the country on August 15, Islamic Emirate forces entered Kabul and took control of the Presidential Palace after nearly 20 years.
25 Years Since 9/11: From the Attacks to the Afghanistan War
A court has temporarily suspended a directive to expel the students, but the threat of eviction lingers amid broader Pakistan-Afghanistan tensions.
Islamabad, Pakistan – Alishba*, a medical student, was on a maternity ward night shift in Lahore when her phone began filling with messages on September 8.
“Someone said, ‘We’ve received a notification that almost 20 students are being expelled,’” she told Al Jazeera. “My first reaction was, this is nonsense. How could a government expel students from universities without any reason?”
By morning, it was not nonsense. She was one of nearly two dozen Afghan nationals named on her college’s expulsion list, circulating on Facebook within hours, all given less than three days to prepare to leave the only country where, as a woman, she has been able to study medicine at all.
On September 1, the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC), the country’s medical regulator, ordered universities and colleges to send enrolled Afghan students home. They were also barred from any new admissions, transfers or migrations of Afghan nationals for the current academic year.
In all, more than 200 Afghan students are currently enrolled in Pakistani medical or dental colleges, according to the PMDC, and most of them have been hit.
On September 11, they got temporary reprieve: Lahore High Court on Friday suspended the implementation of the PMDC directives, hearing petitions from Afghan students. The petitioners, represented by advocate Asad Jamal, argued PMDC had exceeded its jurisdiction under its own governing act and that students had been “condemned unheard”, their rights to education, life and dignity violated without any opportunity to respond.
The court noted some petitioners had studied in Pakistan for four years before now being told to leave. “Until yesterday, these were favoured children,” Justice Khalid Ishaq remarked. “Today, the policy has changed.”
The case returns to court on September 18, by which point PMDC, the Ministry of National Health Services, and the vice chancellors of affected institutions are required to file their responses. Until then, the students have respite from any punitive measure, Jamal, their lawyer, said.
“The judge very clearly stated in the courtroom that the students will be allowed to sit their exams, join classes, resume studies, and go back to their hostels, and no coercive measures can be taken against them,” he told Al Jazeera.
But the threat of expulsion lingers – a fear students must now live with, alongside their studies, while the case proceeds in court.
“I want to cry every minute,” Alishba said. “We are not dolls for them to play with. This is our life.”
A directive without a warning
In a statement issued to justify its directive, the PMDC had argued that all foreign students enrolled in Pakistani medical or dental institutions needed to be registered with the regulator.
It said “only 22 are presently registered” with the PMDC – including 14 who have graduated, and eight who are about to graduate.
But many of the other students came through the Allama Iqbal Scholarship, a programme run by Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission (HEC) with the Pakistani embassy in Kabul for top-scoring Afghan students.
And the students say neither any Pakistani government agency nor their colleges told them at the time that they also needed to register with the PMDC, a body that – per its official mandate – both oversees medical practitioners and is supposed to register medical and dental students.
“I came to Pakistan in 2021,” Alishba said. “They [Pakistan] provided us the scholarship, processed entirely through HEC and the embassy.”
Nevertheless, within days of the PMDC directive, institutions across different parts of the country began issuing eviction notices, in some cases giving students as little as 24 hours to clear their hostel rooms.
The order comes amid a broader, years-long expulsion drive that has coincided with a dramatic plunge in relations between Islamabad and the Taliban government in Kabul, marked by a rise in cross-border attacks and clashes along the two countries’ shared border.
Pakistan launched what it called the Illegal Foreigners’ Repatriation Plan in late 2023, initially targeting undocumented migrants, after authorities said Afghan nationals had carried out 14 of 24 suicide bombings recorded in the country that year.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in June this year that more than 2.4 million Afghan nationals had returned since the drive began, describing it, in a message marking World Refugee Day, as a “phased, orderly and dignified repatriation process”.
But to the medical and dental students now being forced to leave their studies midway, there’s nothing orderly or dignified about the way they are being treated.
Left off the register
For Zainab*, a final-year student at another Lahore medical college, the order is the second time a change of government has closed a medical school door to her.
She had completed one semester at Kabul University of Medical Sciences when the Taliban seized power in August 2021, ending her studies there, as part of the group’s broader ban on women in higher education.
She later won her place in Pakistan through the HEC scholarship.
In her second year in Lahore, Zainab said, she walked into her college’s student affairs office and asked a simple question: Was she registered with PMDC?
She was told not to worry about it, that registration would come later, after graduation. Three years on, that unanswered question has become the official justification for sending her home mid-degree.
“If PMDC registration was genuinely the issue here, why wasn’t that stated anywhere?” she asked. “Why weren’t we told we weren’t registered? Why wasn’t it raised on the very first day we arrived, if it mattered this much?”
She initially held out hope the notice would not apply to her.
“But then our own university issued the same notice, and our vice chancellor called us in and told us clearly: This is a PMDC order, there is nothing we can do, come and collect your NOCs,” she said, referring to the no-objection certificates required to leave.
She has not formally been handed one. But she has been barred from lectures and hospital shifts since the notice arrived, which she says amounts to expulsion in practice, if not yet on paper.
Students interviewed by Al Jazeera describe a registration process they say was never in their own hands.
Rizwan*, a final-year medical student in Rawalpindi, said universities, not students, submit registration data to PMDC, typically once a student reaches second or third year.
“We are registered with the university, UHS and HEC,” he said, referring to the University of Health Sciences Lahore, which oversees several affected colleges. “But we are not registered with PMDC. Our registration is pending due to PMDC not approving it.”
Rizwan said the gap traces back to a regulatory upheaval that predates the current dispute.
Pakistan’s medical regulator was dissolved in 2019 under a presidential ordinance and replaced by a newly created body called the Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC).
In 2022, the Islamabad High Court restored the PMDC and declared the PMC’s formation illegal, a reversal that left a backlog of students and graduates from that period without a clear registration status. PMDC has since worked through the backlog in phases for various categories of students.
Afghan students admitted during the transition, Rizwan said, were among those still waiting.
The PMDC’s directive bars institutions from facilitating any transfer or migration for Afghan students, a clause he says would strip him of even the option of continuing elsewhere.
“What if we want to continue somewhere else?” Rizwan, who is five months from finishing his degree, asked.
‘We are not immigrants’
Students interviewed by Al Jazeera were emphatic that they had never intended to remain in Pakistan beyond their studies, and had no legal path to do so regardless.
“After graduation we are not given a visa, because our visa is extended on our student status,” Rizwan said. “When that status ends, we always go back. We can’t stay here without a visa.”
Zainab made a similar point more pointedly, rejecting any comparison with the undocumented migrants targeted by Pakistan’s wider repatriation drive.
“We are not immigrants,” she said. “We were legally invited here, legally granted a scholarship by this country, legally issued a visa every single year. This should not be happening to us.”
The picture is not uniform across the country.
Batool*, a final-year medical student in Peshawar, said her college had not issued an eviction notice so far. She said her Pakistani classmates had been unfailingly supportive.
“The culture, the language, even the food, feels remarkably close to home,” she said. “I’ve never experienced or heard anything negative from people here, not now, and not before any of this.”
Afghanistan’s Taliban government has called the decision “inhumane”. Chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the country’s Ministry of Higher Education stood ready to help returning students continue their studies.
Rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW), too, condemned the government’s decision.
“The Pakistan government’s order is shockingly short-sighted and cruel, and seems yet again aimed only at punishing Afghans because of Pakistan’s conflict with the Taliban,” Patricia Gossman, HRW’s senior associate Asia director, told Al Jazeera.
“The end result of this incredibly callous approach is to deprive Afghans of trained doctors and other medical professionals, especially women, just as the country is in the throes of a humanitarian crisis,” she added.
Two former Pakistani ambassadors to Afghanistan have also questioned the decision, urging the government to reverse it.
Mansoor Ahmad Khan urged PMDC to “reconsider its decision on Afghan students in medical colleges and universities on humanitarian grounds”, proposing students be allowed to finish their degrees before any return is arranged.
Asif Durrani, a former special representative for Afghanistan, called the expulsion “shocking”.
“Expelling these students, particularly young women who have fought against extraordinary odds simply to study, is not just an administrative matter,” Durrani wrote on X. “It is a question of humanity, compassion and Pakistan’s own moral responsibility. Let them study. Let them become doctors. Let them serve their people. Reverse the decision. Give these students a future.”
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Sajjad Haider Khan told Al Jazeera that students holding a valid visa and registered in a degree programme “are supposed to stay in the country” and finish their studies. But he did not explain the gap between that assurance and what students describe happening on campuses.
Khan also outlined this position in response to a question from a reporter at a weekly briefing on Thursday.
HEC did not respond to questions from Al Jazeera. PMDC also did not address questions, referring Al Jazeera instead to its public statement.
Siddiq Shariati, president of the Afghan Student Union at the International Islamic University Islamabad, said the policy risked damage beyond the students immediately affected, and that he feared for his own position too, despite studying international relations rather than medicine.
“Given that PMDC has already issued a notice for all medical students, it’s entirely possible HEC could issue a similar notification next, one that applies to all Afghan students across all disciplines,” he told Al Jazeera. “If that happens, we would be forced to leave as well.”
In all, about 7,000 Afghan students are studying in Pakistani colleges, with more than 4,500 of them on Pakistan government-sponsored scholarships.
‘This is our life’
Batool, the student in Peshawar, said the consequences of any expulsion would not fall equally on male and female students.
Male students, she said, could still be admitted to universities inside Afghanistan.
“Female students are in a genuinely devastating position, because no one is going to open universities just to accommodate 200 or 300 girls trying to finish a degree,” she said. “And if they did make that exception, they’d be forced to open education more broadly to everyone, not just us, not just medicine, because the double standard would draw immediate criticism, both from inside and outside Afghanistan.”
At Alishba’s college in Lahore, the vice chancellor gave students 24 hours to vacate the hostel, warning that anyone who stayed would be reported to the authorities.
She has not yet been forced out, but has not been allowed back into class either.
“The administration has said no Afghan student is permitted in class, and our attendance won’t be counted since we’re considered expelled,” she said.
She has packed an “emergency” bag, just documents and a change of clothes, in case she is made to leave without warning.
“My mother always dreamed of seeing me in scrubs, serving female patients who have no doctors in Afghanistan,” she said. “She has already made my graduation dress. Now, all of that has faded. There is no graduation. There is no degree.
“I feel like a doll being played with between the political issues of two countries,” Alishba added. “I’ve done nothing wrong. If you brought us here and gave us seats, let us finish our degrees.”
*Names have been changed to protect the identities of the students.
‘I want to cry’: Afghan medical students in Pakistan face expulsion fear
It remains unclear whether the administration would seek to use the court again after successfully obtaining an order from its chief judge to expel the woman.
An Afghan woman accused of supporting the Islamic State has been sent back to her homeland in the first successful use of an obscure court set up 30 years ago to deport immigrants said to have ties to terrorist groups, according to the Justice Department and court papers unsealed on Friday.
The woman, Nazira Haji Zada, was arrested in Texas in July and brought by national security prosecutors before what is known as the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, which sits in Washington. The prosecutors claimed that Ms. Zada, 47, was connected to a foiled terrorist plot inspired by ISIS to commit a mass shooting on Election Day in 2024 and asked a judge to expel her from the country.
Ms. Zada’s lawyers initially challenged her removal, claiming that the court, which handles deportation proceedings that largely rest on classified information, was unconstitutional. But in a statement issued on Friday, the Justice Department said that Ms. Zada had eventually “conceded that she is an alien terrorist” and had waived her challenge to the government’s request for deportation.
“This landmark case, resulting in the prompt removal of this alien terrorist to her country of origin, is a win for national security and the rule of law,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said in the statement, adding that the case showed “how the department will use every tool at its disposal to protect our country.”
Ms. Zada’s lawyers, Matthew Farley and Mary Petras, pushed back in a statement, asserting that Ms. Zada’s consent to removal “should not be seen as an endorsement” of the court.
“Dragging lawful permanent residents into court but refusing to show them or their attorneys the evidence that will be used against them is a plain violation of due process,” they said. “We are confident that the Alien Terrorist Removal Court will be struck down as unconstitutional as soon as a judge is asked to address the issue.”
The Trump administration has used an array of aggressive tactics to carry out the president’s promise to ramp up deportations — and many of those methods have faced legal challenges. The case against Ms. Zada was a test of a new avenue: a little-known court where much of the evidence is presented in secret and defendants cannot contest how it was collected.
It remains unclear whether the administration would now seek to use the court again after successfully obtaining an order to expel Ms. Zada from Joan N. Ericksen, the chief judge of the court. The case has also left unanswered broader questions about how the court would handle any future proceedings and about its underlying legality.
After Ms. Zada was arrested this summer, prosecutors disclosed in an unclassified summary of her case that last year, both her son, Abdullah Haji Zada, and her son-in-law, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, had pleaded guilty to charges connected to the Election Day plot and had admitted that they tried to buy two AK-47-style rifles and 500 rounds of ammunition to carry it out.
Moreover, they claimed that Ms. Zada herself “supported” the conspiracy and had “pledged loyalty” to the Islamic State. The prosecutors also said that she had “worked to indoctrinate her children with ISIS ideology” and concealed a plan to relocate her family to ISIS-controlled territory from “her unsuspecting husband.”
Ms. Zada’s lawyers claimed that the government was using the court only because investigators were unable to develop enough evidence to charge her criminally. They noted that a lower standard of proof was required to deport her, adding that, under the court’s rules, the government did not have to reveal all the evidence it had collected.
Afghan Woman Deported in First Use of Obscure Terrorism Court
The United Nations says aid workers are still in a “race against time” to remove rubble and rebuild after the devastating earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan last month, killing at least 2,200 people and cutting off remote areas.
The 6.0-magnitude quake on Aug. 31 was shallow, destroying or causing extensive damage to low-rise buildings in the mountainous region. It hit late at night, and homes — mostly made of mud, wood, or rocks — collapsed instantly, becoming death traps.
Satellite data shows that about 40,500 truckloads of debris still needs to be cleared from affected areas in several provinces, the United Nations Development Program said Wednesday. Entire communities have been upended and families are sleeping in the open, it added.
The quake’s epicenter was in remote and rugged Kunar province, challenging rescue and relief efforts by the Taliban government and humanitarian groups. Authorities deployed helicopters or airdropped army commandos to evacuate survivors. Aid workers walked for hours on foot to reach isolated communities.
“This is a race against time,” said Devanand Ramiah, from the UNDP’s Crisis Bureau. “Debris removal and reconstruction operations must start safely and swiftly.”
People’s main demands were the reconstruction of houses and water supplies, according to a spokesman for a Taliban government committee tasked with helping survivors, Zia ur Rahman Speenghar.
People were getting assistance in cash, food, tents, beds, and other necessities, Speenghar said Thursday. Three new roads were under construction in the Dewagal Valley, and roads would be built to areas where there previously were none.
“Various countries and organizations have offered assistance in the construction of houses but that takes time. After the second round of assistance, work will begin on the third round, which is considering what kind of houses can be built here,” the spokesman said.
Afghanistan is facing a “perfect storm” of crises, including natural disasters like the recent earthquake, said Roza Otunbayeva, who leads the U.N. mission to the country.
Afghanistan Peace Campaign
