What will al qaeda do

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid rejected accusations that al Qaeda maintained a presence in Afghanistan and repeated pledges that there would be no attacks on third countries from Afghanistan from militant movements. The Taliban were ousted from power by U. They returned to Kabul last month after U. The Afghan affiliate of Islamic State, known as Islamic State Khorasan ISIS-K , after an old name for the region, first appeared in eastern Afghanistan in and later made inroads into other areas, particularly the north.

Several years ago, the U. Right, and the Taliban have said they will not accept this kind of violence. Well, even in , when the group first emerged, the Taliban's deputy at the time sent a letter to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was the supposed caliph of ISIS, warning them that, "Look, Afghanistan's a no-go zone.

You guys need to stay out of it. Even recently, when the Taliban broke prisons, they released all their own prisoners — they also released common criminals — but they actually killed the former head of ISIS-K in Afghanistan, Abu Omar Khorasani, who was in one of the main prisons in Afghanistan. How about al-Qaeda? I mean, they did have support from the Taliban. Do al-Qaeda still have a presence in Afghanistan? The relationship between al-Qaeda and [the] Taliban was, I would argue, quite by accident, because the Taliban were a rural movement and al-Qaeda was a Salafist movement.

Al-Qaeda harbored global ambitions and the Taliban had always been more confined to national borders. But in the s, as the international community shunned them and they imposed sanctions on them, the Taliban became more and more dependent on some of these militant groups, including al-Qaeda.

Right now, they seem to want to do things differently. But again, a lot will depend on how the international community interacts with the new Taliban. The big concern, of course, is that Afghanistan once again becomes a safe haven for these groups to operate, but also to recruit people from outside the country and train them in Afghanistan.

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Shusha was the key to the recent war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Now Baku wants to turn the fabled fortress town into a resort. By Barbara Elias , an associate professor of government and legal studies at Bowdoin College.

Taliban fighters pose in front of a bakery at a market area in Khenj district, Panjshir province, Afghanistan, on Sept. September 21, , PM.

Leaving Afghanistan What happens to the country and its people after the forever war ends? More on this topic. Argument Azeem Ibrahim. Argument Rita Katz. Join the Conversation Commenting on this and other recent articles is just one benefit of a Foreign Policy subscription. Join the Conversation Join the conversation on this and other recent Foreign Policy articles when you subscribe now. Subscribe Subscribe Not your account?

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