A specialized United Nations team assessed that at least three key leaders in the Taliban's ruling government are “affiliated” or “associated” with the al Qaeda terrorist group in Afghanistan.
The Taliban, which protected al Qaeda before and after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, rapidly took over Afghanistan amid a disastrous U.S. withdrawal in August 2021.
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The U.N. Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team said in its June report that “two provincial governors of the Taliban de facto administration,” Qari Ehsanullah Baryal and Hafiz Muhammad Agha Hakeem, “are affiliated with al-Qaeda.” The team added that “another Talib associated with al-Qaeda,” Tajmir Jawad, is the "Deputy Director of the General Directorate of Intelligence.”
The confirmation of al Qaeda-affiliated leaders in the Taliban government comes after President Joe Biden wrongly claimed that al Qaeda was “gone” from Afghanistan a few days after the Taliban takeover in 2021.
Hakeem had been the governor of Nuristan province but was named the governor of Panjshir province in May. Baryal was named the governor of Kabul province by the Taliban in November 2021 and later went on to become the governor of Kapisa province. Jawad was named the deputy chief of the Taliban’s intelligence services in September 2021.
The U.N. noted the U.S. military has assessed that Jawad was the former head of the “Kabul Network” — described as “a mixture of al-Qaeda and Taliban that directed suicide assaults against the United States and other coalition targets.”
The FBI also describes Sirajuddin Haqqani, a Taliban deputy prime minister and the leader of the Taliban government’s powerful interior ministry, as “a senior leader of the Haqqani network” who “maintains close ties to the Taliban and al Qaeda.”
The U.N. said that Sirajuddin’s ministry “continued its distribution of Afghan passports and tazkiras (national identity cards) to al-Qaeda members with advisory roles in main Afghan cities.”
The new report indicated “al-Qaeda members have received appointments and advisory roles in the Taliban security and administrative structures” thanks to the Taliban and that "the Taliban provided al-Qaeda with monthly ‘welfare payments,’ with portions of those payments filtered down to fighters of al-Qaeda affiliated groups.”
The report also said that “one training director of the de facto Ministry of Defence was an al-Qaeda member, while training was based on al-Qaeda manuals, which were openly being used at Ministry facilities.”
The U.N. report, first unearthed by the Long War Journal, warned that “the link” between the Taliban and both al Qaeda and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan terrorist groups “remains strong.” The U.N. further warned that the operations of the Islamic State “are becoming more sophisticated and lethal.”
The U.N. said that “a range of terrorist groups have greater freedom of maneuver under the Taliban” and "the threat of terrorism is rising in both Afghanistan and the region.”
The new report warned “the presence of foreign terrorist fighters harbored by the Taliban has become an increasing security threat to many neighboring countries” and that “this anxiety did not lessen” with the U.S. drone strike against al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri in a “Kabul guesthouse connected to” Sirajuddin in July 2022.
The Taliban, the Haqqani network, and al Qaeda remain deeply intertwined in Afghanistan. The Taliban gave al Qaeda safe haven in Afghanistan before 9/11, and they continued to protect and fight alongside it for two decades after the U.S. invasion. Numerous members of the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network received top positions in the Taliban’s government in 2021.
The U.N. team stressed that “the Taliban of 2023 is, with few exceptions, the same Taliban of the 1990s.”
“The relationship between the Taliban and Al-Qaida remained close and symbiotic, with al-Qaeda viewing Taliban-administered Afghanistan a safe haven,” the report read. “Al-Qaeda still aims to strengthen its position in Afghanistan and has been interacting with the Taliban, supporting the regime, and protecting senior Taliban figures. Al-Qaeda maintains a low profile, focusing on using the country as an ideological and logistical hub to mobilize and recruit new fighters while covertly rebuilding its external operations capability.”
The new report assessed that, since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, senior al Qaeda leaders such as Mohamed Abbatay likely traveled between Afghanistan and Iran, and one unnamed country reported that the “de facto leader” of al Qaeda, Saif al Adel, had “traveled from his base” in Iran to Afghanistan and then back again in November 2022, while another unnamed nation believed the al Qaeda leader was “in Afghanistan.”
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The U.N. said that there were between 30 to 60 “core members” of al Qaeda in Afghanistan, while the U.N. estimated that there are 400 “al-Qaeda fighters” in Afghanistan, with that number “reaching 2,000 with family members and supporters included.”
Al Qaeda has “established new training camps” and "safe houses" across Afghanistan, the U.N. said. One unnamed country “reported the arrival of 20 to 25 Arab foreign fighters to Kunar and Nuristan, where the location of a camp was stated to be specifically for the training of suicide bombers, accompanied by a new al-Qaeda media apparatus being established" in Afghanistan, the report found.