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The 25-page report says that the Taliban “stays shut” with al Qaeda, which now has “elevated freedom of motion” in Afghanistan.
Underlining that elevated freedom of motion, the chief of al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, “has issued extra frequent recorded messages,” showing in eight movies for the reason that Taliban took over Afghanistan final August, in response to the UN report. And al Qaeda has renewed its pledge of allegiance to the chief of the Taliban.
The UN additionally factors out that an astonishing 41 members of the Taliban who’re on the UN sanctions record have been appointed to the cupboard and different senior-level positions in Afghanistan.
All of this demonstrates how deeply flawed a technique it was for the Trump administration to barter a “peace” settlement with the Taliban — and the way misguided it was for Biden to abide by that settlement as soon as he assumed workplace.
The Trump workforce signed the settlement with the Taliban in 2020 and Biden, who mentioned he was compelled to both abide by that deal or escalate the combating in Afghanistan, selected to tug out all US troops in August final yr.
It is value noting this settlement wasn’t ratified by the US Senate, and as an alternative was a deal negotiated with a terrorist/rebel group that failed to stay to their finish of the settlement. It was additionally a deal that had been struck with none substantive involvement of the elected Afghan authorities.
As the brand new UN report makes clear, the Taliban didn’t break with al Qaeda, noting that the terrorist group has as an alternative “used the Taliban’s takeover to draw new recruits and funding” whereas the core al Qaeda management “is reported to stay in Afghanistan: extra particularly, the jap area from Zabul Province north in the direction of Kunar and alongside the border with Pakistan.”
And naturally, the Taliban did not come to a peace settlement with the Afghan authorities. Because the People unexpectedly withdrew from Afghanistan, the Taliban as an alternative overthrew the elected Afghan authorities.
The UN report states that the Taliban “are, largely, the identical Taliban motion that was deposed in 2001.” The UN additionally notes that the highest posts within the Taliban authorities “have been given to the Taliban’s ‘outdated guard.'”
In the meantime, the Taliban proceed to permit international terrorist teams to make use of Afghanistan as a base. The biggest such group is the Pakistani Taliban, which numbers a number of thousand fighters, in response to the UN.
The UN report does have some certified excellent news, concluding that the Afghanistan department of ISIS and al Qaeda usually are not believed to be “able to mounting worldwide assaults till 2023 on the earliest.”
That mentioned, the Taliban is in a stronger place right this moment than the final time it was in energy. That was earlier than the 9/11 assaults, when it was combating the Northern Alliance, a not insignificant opposition pressure.
The Taliban right this moment hasn’t considerably modified any of its social insurance policies, nor has it deserted its alliance with al-Qaeda. We now have seen how this film performs out previously. To paraphrase an remark attributed to Mark Twain, whereas historical past could not repeat itself, it definitely could rhyme.
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