There is a dangerous fiction circulating in international discourse that Afghanistan’s turmoil is contained, regionalized and — to some extent — manageable. It is not. The evidence is overwhelming, the spillover already visible and the Taliban regime’s complicity increasingly undeniable.
What is emerging in Afghanistan today is not merely a resurgence of extremist groups; it is the reconstruction of a full-fledged, transnational terror ecosystem. And Pakistan, once again, is standing on the front line of a crisis the world cannot afford to ignore.
The events of late November should have shattered any remaining illusions. On November 27, a quadcopter attack launched from Afghan territory targeted Chinese engineers in Tajikistan — a cross-border strike planned with precision.
A day earlier, an Afghan immigrant murdered two National Guard soldiers in Washington, DC. US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director Akash Patel later confirmed that the attacker had been in communication with groups operating out of Afghanistan.
These two incidents, worlds apart geographically, are connected by the same source: a rapidly expanding militant infrastructure that the Taliban has not merely tolerated, but empowered.
The United Nations Monitoring Team has been issuing increasingly alarming reports. Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP) is expanding, al-Qaeda is rebuilding and the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is consolidating its presence.
Financing pipelines — including the use of cryptocurrencies — are proliferating. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the US oversight body, has independently corroborated the same trend.
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According to recent UN estimates, Afghanistan now hosts around 13,000 foreign fighters, including more than 6,000 TTP militants, roughly 3,000 ISKP operatives and hundreds aligned with al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), Central Asian terror outfits and Middle Eastern terror group franchises.
Battle-hardened ISIS fighters from Iraq and Syria are migrating into Afghanistan, some using Kunduz as a staging point for movement into Central Asia.
For Pakistan, the crisis is not abstract – it is lived reality. TTP fighters based in Afghanistan have intensified attacks inside Pakistan since 2021. The evidence of Afghan-based planning — intercepts, testimonies and logistical trails — is overwhelming. Even as Islamabad has repeatedly raised the alarm, the Taliban regime continues to host, shield and enable TTP and other groups.
The Taliban’s much-advertised promise of “no sanctuary” for foreign militants, previously trotted out to win international support and recognition, has evaporated entirely. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of former Taliban fighters, unemployed after the war’s end and facing acute poverty, are joining the TTP and other extremist groups, blurring the line between Taliban factions and transnational jihadist organizations.
To pretend the Taliban is losing control of these groups is to miss the deeper truth: It never intended to control them. There is ideological affinity, operational overlap and shared benefit. Whether through active support, willful blindness or simple lack of capacity, the effect is the same.
Afghanistan is now the world’s most permissive environment for militant networks, a sanctuary where groups with local ambitions coexist alongside outfits with global agendas. The drone attack in Tajikistan was a demonstration — a signal of capability and intent. It will not likely be the last.
The broader region is already on alert. Denmark’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations recently warned that Afghan-based groups — from TTP and ISKP to al-Qaeda — are expanding propaganda, recruitment and financing operations.
Russia’s Security Council secretary Sergei Shoigu has described Afghan extremist movements as a “serious concern.” Moscow’s ambassador to the UN has warned that ISKP is receiving foreign funding and may soon project violence beyond the region.
Chinese citizens are under Afghan-based terror group attack. Central Asian states are bracing for infiltration. Pakistan is absorbing daily blowback. And if history is any indicator, Europe and the United States will be targets.
The notion that Afghanistan’s instability is a “regional problem” is a dangerous illusion. Terrorism today moves through digital networks, encrypted platforms and global financing channels. Distance offers no protection. Ignoring Afghanistan now will only ensure that the crisis metastasizes.
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What is needed is a dual approach rooted in both confrontation and cooperation. Pakistan, China, Iran, Russia and the Central Asian republics must build a joint regional security framework that includes intelligence sharing, border surveillance, financial tracking and rapid-response mechanisms.
The Taliban must face unified diplomatic and economic pressure until it dismantles the militant networks operating on its soil. Western states must remain engaged, not as military actors, but as political stakeholders who cannot afford for Afghanistan to once again become a terror-export hub.
The world has seen this cycle before. The difference today is that the warnings are clearer, the indicators more explicit and the consequences already unfolding beyond Afghanistan’s borders. Pakistan is bleeding, Central Asia is exposed, China has been targeted and the United States has already experienced the ripple effects.
Afghanistan is becoming what the world once vowed never to allow again: a country-sized incubator for global terror. The evidence is clear, the spillover has begun and the only question now is whether the world will act decisively before it is forced to act under far more dangerous circumstances.
Advocate Mazhar Siddique Khan is a Lahore-based high court lawyer. He can be contacted at [email protected].
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