Al Qaeda's Resurgence: Examining The Terrorist Group's Presence In Afghanistan

Al-Qaeda, a pan-Islamist militant organisation, was founded by Osama bin Laden in the late 1980s and became one of the world's most notorious terrorist organisations after carrying out the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Al-Qaeda began as a logistical network to support Muslims fighting against the Soviet Union during the Afghan War. Members were recruited throughout the Islamic world. When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, the organisation dispersed but continued to oppose what its leaders considered corrupt Islamic regimes and foreign (i.e. US) presence in Islamic lands.

Al-Qaeda has carried out some of the most violent and infamous attacks in the last twenty-five years. It has a long history and a global reach, with a core group of operatives and leadership largely based in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It maintains relationships with a number of affiliate organisations around the world.

Al-Qaeda's name comes from the name for one of the mujahideen training camps established during the Afghan insurgency against the Soviet invasion in the 1980s.

Al-Qaeda is deemed a designated terrorist group by the UN Security Council, NATO, the European Union, and various countries around the world.

Al-Qaeda's origins and founding

Al-Qaeda, Arabic for "the base", is one of the most powerful terrorist organisations in the world, with a long history, a global reach, and a strong presence in Afghanistan. The group was founded in 1988 in Peshawar, Pakistan, by Osama bin Laden, Muhammad Atef ("Abu Hafs al Masry"), Abu Ubaidah al Banshiri, Abdullah Azzam, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and other veterans of the Soviet-Afghan War.

The organisation grew out of the "mekhtab al khidemat" or Services Office, which maintained offices in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the United States. The founding members decided to create Al-Qaeda to serve as a vanguard for jihad, with the aim of promoting jihad awareness in the Islamic world, training and equipping fighters, and supporting and sponsoring the jihad movement.

From 1989 to 1991, Al-Qaeda was headquartered in Afghanistan and Peshawar, Pakistan. During this time, bin Laden offered to support Saudi Arabia against Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait by sending his Mujahideen fighters. However, his offer was rejected, and the Saudi government sought aid from the United States instead. The presence of US troops in the Arabian Peninsula prompted bin Laden to declare jihad against both Saudi Arabia and the US. In about 1991, the leadership of Al-Qaeda, including bin Laden, relocated to Sudan.

As of 2013, Al-Qaeda had a significant presence in Afghanistan, and by 2024, the group was reported to be back and thriving in the country, sharing in the profits of the Taliban's illicit enterprises and funnelling proceeds to affiliated jihadi groups worldwide. Al-Qaeda's goals include ridding the Muslim world of Western influence, destroying Israel, and creating an Islamic caliphate that imposes a strict Sunni interpretation of Sharia law.

Al-Qaeda's relationship with the Taliban

Al-Qaeda and the Taliban have had a strong relationship for more than two decades, despite not always seeing eye to eye. The two groups have had their differences, with divergent strategic objectives, priorities, and tactics. The Taliban has been focused on Afghanistan, while Al-Qaeda has pursued global jihadist ambitions. However, they have continued to cooperate in Afghanistan, with a shared goal of expelling US forces and reinstating Taliban rule. They also share a similar fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, with the Taliban combining the pre-Islamic Pashtun tribal code, Pashtunwali, with Wahhabism.

Al-Qaeda has been harboured by the Taliban for much of the past decade, particularly by the Haqqani network, a Taliban militia based in Pakistan's tribal regions. The relationship between the two groups has been so strong that a United Nations report claimed that the Taliban had offered Al-Qaeda training and sanctuary in the event of a US withdrawal. The Taliban has also profited from Al-Qaeda's involvement in the country's illicit drug trade, mining, and smuggling enterprises. Al-Qaeda has been able to funnel the proceeds from these activities to affiliated jihadi groups worldwide.

The relationship between the two groups has been further solidified by the sharing of profits from gold mines in Afghanistan's northern provinces. Al-Qaeda has been raking in tens of millions of dollars a week from these mines, with the Taliban's monthly take exceeding $25 million. This money is shared between the two factions of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, entrenching the group's power.

Recent developments in Afghanistan suggest that the Taliban is unlikely to abandon Al-Qaeda anytime soon. The Taliban may even permit Al-Qaeda's activities in the country as long as they benefit the Taliban operationally and are not traceable back to them.

Al-Qaeda's presence in Pakistan

Al-Qaeda was founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden and other veterans of the Soviet-Afghan War. The group's founding meetings were held in Peshawar, Pakistan, and the group was initially headquartered in Afghanistan and Peshawar from 1989 to 1991. In the early 1990s, bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders were based in Sudan, but they returned to Afghanistan in 1996.

Al-Qaeda has maintained strong ties to the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) and the Haqqani Network (HN), which has provided protection, training, and resources to al-Qaeda. The group has also established relationships with various Pakistani jihadist groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.

Al-Qaeda has used its connections in Pakistan to establish training camps and guesthouses for its members and affiliates. The group has also used Pakistan as a base for planning and executing attacks, including the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.

Al-Qaeda's relationship with the Haqqani network

The Haqqani network, an Afghan Islamist group, has been called the Taliban's "most radical and violent branch" by the Wall Street Journal. The group was founded in 1970 by Jalaluddin Haqqani, a fundamentalist of the Zadran tribe, and has been recognised as a terrorist organisation by the United Nations.

The Haqqani network has been blamed for some of the deadliest attacks during the War in Afghanistan (2001-2021), including the January 2008 attack on a hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, that killed six people, including an American citizen.

The relationship between Al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network dates back to the founding of Al-Qaeda. Jalaluddin Haqqani, the founder of the Haqqani network, is credited with recruiting foreign fighters, including Abdullah Azzam and Osama bin Laden, who both began their careers as volunteer fighters for the Haqqanis in the conflict against the Soviets.

The Haqqani network has maintained safe havens in North Waziristan, Pakistan, across Afghanistan's southeastern border. The Pakistani Army has consistently refused to launch a military operation in North Waziristan despite the presence of Al-Qaeda senior leadership. In August 2022, members of the Haqqani network tried to conceal that Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was at a safe house in Kabul, where he was killed in a U.S. drone strike.

The Haqqani network and Al-Qaeda share an ideological foundation. Jalaluddin Haqqani realised the importance of Azzam's "foundational Islamic legal decisions declaring the Afghan jihad a universally and individually binding duty borne by all Muslims worldwide." The Haqqani network was one of the only groups to welcome foreign fighters into its ranks, thus linking it to the broader global jihadist movement.

The Haqqani network has also assisted Al-Qaeda in establishing safe havens in Pakistan. Many sources believe that Jalaluddin Haqqani and his forces assisted with Al-Qaeda's escape into these safe havens.

In February 2020, Al-Qaeda leader al-Zawahiri met with Yahya Haqqani, the primary Haqqani network contact with Al-Qaeda since mid-2009, to discuss ongoing cooperation. A United Nations report from July 2020 stated that Al-Qaeda was still active in twelve provinces in Afghanistan and that the total number of Al-Qaeda fighters in the country was "between 400 and 600".

Al-Qaeda's relationship with other terrorist organisations

Al-Qaeda has had relationships with a number of other terrorist organisations, including:

• Egyptian Islamic Jihad
• The Islamic Group
• Jihad groups in Sudan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Croatia, Albania, Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon, the Philippines, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, and the Kashmiri region of India and the Chechnyan region of Russia
• The National Islamic Front in the Sudan
• Hezbollah
• The Haqqani Network
• The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)
• The Islamic State of Iraq (ISI)
• Al-Nusra Front
• The Islamic Jihad Union
• The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
• The Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group
• Abu Sayyaf
• Al-Mourabitoun
• Ansar al-Islam
• Islamic Jihad of Yemen
• Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa
• Rajah Sulaiman movement
• Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)
• Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS)
• Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)
• Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM)
• The Caucasus Emirate (factions)

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