Posted on 07/30/2026 7:37:26 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Nearly five years after the last American troops left Afghanistan, al-Qaeda is again finding both sanctuary in the country and an audience far beyond it.
A new report from Europol warns that jihadism remained Europe’s most widespread form of terrorism in 2025, accounting for 24 of the 45 terrorist attacks reported by European Union member states and 347 terrorism-related arrests. More ominously, the report finds that al-Qaeda is exploiting the war in Gaza to regain influence and incite attacks against Western and Jewish targets.
The group Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, has been particularly aggressive. Europol reports that the AQAP published motivational and instructional material for aspiring lone wolf terrorists, including a guide urging followers to imitate the May 2025 terrorist attack outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. It also drew lessons from attacks against Jewish targets in Colorado and England.
This is not the al-Qaeda of grainy cave videos speaking only to hardened jihadists. Its propagandists increasingly tailor their message to younger, digitally connected audiences and attach themselves to causes already producing anger in the West.
Dr. Jean-Claude Furneaux, a former U.N. diplomat in Afghanistan during the country’s civil war in the mid-1990s, said today’s al-Qaeda “widens its appeal by adopting the language of Western radical movements,” invoking terms such as “anti-imperialism,” “sovereignty,” “Global South,” “revolution,” and “resistance of popular forces.”
That does not mean every demonstration over Gaza is orchestrated by terrorists. It means al-Qaeda sees a recruitment opportunity wherever legitimate grief is transformed into hatred of the West, contempt for democratic institutions, or hostility toward Jews. The organization is attempting to present jihadism not as terrorism, but as another front in a supposedly global campaign for “decolonization” and “resistance.”
The propaganda offensive is more dangerous because al-Qaeda once again enjoys room to organize.
A December 2025 report from the United Nations Security Council’s sanctions-monitoring team flatly rejected the Taliban’s claim that no terrorist groups operate from Afghan territory. The U.N. found that the Taliban continues to “host and support” al-Qaeda, that senior commanders reportedly live in Kabul, and that the organization provides other terrorist groups with training, advice, logistical support, and ideological guidance.
The report also states that Sayf al-Adl, al-Qaeda’s de facto leader, has called Afghanistan a safe haven and urged loyalists to travel there for training and experience. Al-Qaeda members or sympathizers are believed to hold senior positions within Taliban institutions, while some have reportedly entered government bodies and security forces. Personal relationships, intermarriage, ideological sympathy, and the Haqqani Network continue to bind the two organizations together.
The U.N. has even received reports of possible al-Qaeda involvement in Taliban efforts to manufacture drones at former military bases near Kabul and in Logar Province. Al-Qaeda may be diminished from its previous strength, but it is not dormant. It is functioning as what the monitoring team calls a “service provider and multiplier” for a wider terrorist ecosystem.
The renewed circulation of Hamza bin Laden’s image should be understood in that context.
The Trump administration announced in September 2019 that Hamza, Osama bin Laden’s son and once-presumed heir, had been killed in a U.S. counterterrorism operation in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. Yet al-Qaeda-aligned channels have recently revived old footage of Hamza alongside al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri and circulated unconfirmed claims that Hamza survived and now operates under Taliban protection.
There is no independent confirmation that Hamza is alive, much less that he is secretly directing al-Qaeda’s recovery – although rumors continue to swirl. But the organization’s decision to resurrect his image is revealing. The bin Laden name connects today’s scattered affiliates to the mythology of al-Qaeda’s founder and offers a recognizable figure around whom a new generation of radicals can rally. Whether Hamza is a commander or merely a symbol, al-Qaeda clearly believes he remains useful.
One former Japanese intelligence official who continues to advise in the region described the present period as al-Qaeda’s most favorable since the beginning of the War on Terror.
“They are glad nobody troubles them,” he said, adding that the organization is again becoming a rallying point for international radicals.
That assessment increasingly echoes public warnings from Western security services. Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Director-General Mike Burgess recently warned that al-Qaeda, Islamic State, and their affiliates are “growing their capability to conduct and inspire attacks,” aided by permissive geographic and online spaces.
Yet just as the terrorist threat is re-emerging, the Taliban is steadily escaping the international isolation imposed after its August 2021 takeover.
Russia formally recognized the Taliban government in July 2025, becoming the first country to do so. China has stopped short of formal recognition but has accepted the credentials of a Taliban-appointed Afghan ambassador, maintained regular high-level contacts, and expanded practical cooperation. Beijing nevertheless continues to say that full diplomatic recognition will come only after the Taliban addresses international concerns.
The European Union has not recognized the regime either, but its special envoy met senior Taliban officials in Kabul in April as part of what Brussels describes as “principled engagement”.
Those distinctions matter. Humanitarian diplomacy is not the same as recognition, and refusing all contact with Kabul would make it harder to deliver aid, secure prisoner releases, or address regional security. But the broader trend is unmistakable – the Taliban is becoming less isolated without satisfying the fundamental conditions that were supposed to precede legitimacy.
Nor has diplomatic engagement produced meaningful moderation inside Afghanistan.
A new report from the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan documented at least 389 arbitrary arrests and detentions and 65 incidents of ill-treatment by the Taliban’s morality police from April through June. In Herat, at least 30 women were arrested for allegedly wearing improper hijab.
A new decree also implicitly sanctions child marriage and erects severe barriers for women seeking to leave violent marriages. While 120,000 men participated in public university entrance examinations, no women were permitted to take part. Taliban authorities also carried out judicial corporal punishment against at least 137 people, including 25 women.
The same government receiving ambassadors and international envoys is therefore sheltering al-Qaeda while intensifying its repression at home.
Engagement with Afghanistan may sometimes be necessary, but legitimization is not. Any movement toward recognition, sanctions relief, or deeper economic cooperation should be conditioned on the measurable action of expelling al-Qaeda leaders, closing terrorist training infrastructure, permitting credible international monitoring, preventing terrorist travel, and reversing the Taliban’s most extreme restrictions on women and girls.
The West was told once before that the Taliban could be trusted to separate itself from al-Qaeda. The evidence from Afghanistan and the propaganda now reaching Europe, America, and Australia shows the dire cost of believing that false promise.
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AQ is regrouping. We will hear from them again.
Transportation provided by Joe Biden.
Check out the reader comment:
fred s · 2 hours ago
the maha movement is just as violent as al qaeda, maha chooses quacks like rfk jr over actual scientists and are anti vaxx and anti science
Maybe we will implement the obvious lesson we should have learned on 9/11 - ban all Muslim migration into the USA and severely restrict and regulate any short-term travel of Muslims, particularly from Africa, South Asia and the Mideast.
But I doubt it.
There’s no vax for explosives.
Well , to fred s I’d say you’re just another useful idiot for the commie libtards.
Sad but true.
A real stooge.
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