Less than a year after the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan following the chaotic US withdrawal in 2021, President Joe Biden vowed the country that once harboured Osama bin Laden would “never again . . . become a terrorist safe haven”.
Yet a surge in international terrorist threats linked to Afghanistan is raising alarm among governments that the country that once sheltered the masterminds of the September 11 2001 attacks is again becoming a hotspot for jihadi groups with global ambitions.
Western officials blamed Islamic State-Khorasan Province, the Afghanistan-based affiliate of the Middle Eastern extremist group and bitter enemy of the Taliban, for last week’s attack on a Moscow concert hall that killed at least 137 people.