KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Ahmad Massoud, leader of the National Resistance Front (NRF), an armed opposition group to the Taliban, says that a future terrorist attack from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan on the US is not a question of if, but when.
In an interview with Daily Mail Online on Monday, April 29, Mr. Massoud highlighted that terrorism is “breeding in the vacuum” left by the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021. He warned that terrorist groups are now seeking to strike targets in the US and Europe.
The leader of NRF says that terrorist activity and recruitment in Afghanistan have reached historic highs in the last two and a half years since the Taliban took control of the country.
“They are expanding and they’re recruiting. They are recruiting more and more people inside Afghanistan to be foot soldiers for many other terrorist groups,” Mr. Massoud said. “An attack on US or European soil is very much possible now. It is not about a matter of if, it’s a matter of when,” he said.
Warnings from the young Massoud and the deaf ears around the world they fall on is a reminder of his father, the famed military commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, who kept ringing alarm bells of the consequences of Taliban’s alliance with Al-Qaeda in the 1990s. When the world had finally decided to act against the terror networks, Ahmad Shah Massoud was killed by Al-Qaeda operatives two days before the September 11 attacks in the U.S. claimed the lives of over 3000 civilians.
Although the junior Massoud’s outcries are largely ignored by diplomatic and political leaders around the world, his worries are corroborated with repeated reports and analysis by intelligence agencies, including the UN Security Council’s sanctions monitoring committee.
According to these reports, at least 20 international terrorist groups, including Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and TTP, have found a breeding ground in the country in the wake of international military withdrawal from Afghanistan. Since then, the international community, including the US and regional countries, has repeatedly expressed concern about the activities and capabilities of these groups in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan while simultaneously building bridges to the resolute regime in Kabul and its extremist leader in Kandahar. Such concerns have intensified, especially in the region, following recent deadly attacks by IS-KP in Moscow and Iran.
Mr. Massoud’s NRF and the Afghanistan Freedom Front (AFF) are the only armed opposition to the Taliban who struggle to challenge the regime in any substantial way or attract global attention. Over the past two years, they claim to have killed and injured dozens of Taliban members across Afghanistan, arguing that only military resistance can end the Taliban’s oppressive rule.
Part of the reason for why Mr. Massoud’s repeated alarms fail to shake the global community is the recognition that the war on terror left the West more vulnerable than safe and that engaging with groups such as the Taliban and regional countries might be a better option to contain such threats to the western nations’ homelands.
Many of these countries have repeatedly praised the Taliban’s actions against ISIS although evidence from the ground suggests otherwise. Despite the Taliban’s claims of dismantling ISIS and asserting that Afghanistan poses no threat to the outside world, terrorist groups, particularly IS-KP, an affiliate of ISIS in Afghanistan, have continued to target the Hazara ethnic group and Taliban members in the country over the past two years.
Just last month, General Frank McKenzie, former commander of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), cautioned that IS-KP holds a strong desire to launch attacks on the US and its allies, emphasizing that such an attack is “inevitable.”
Meanwhile, Fitton Brown, former coordinator of UN sanctions and threat assessment, told CNN last month that IS-KP is increasingly focusing its attention on Europe, citing events such as this year’s Paris Olympics as potential targets.
He said that the terrorist group has established connections within the Central Asian diaspora, particularly in Russia and Turkey, and to some extent in Germany. “I hope I’m wrong,” he said, “but I’m very worried about the Paris Olympics.”
In his interview, Mr. Massoud repeated his appeal for global support to his cause. “If we received a fraction of support that Ukraine is receiving, or any other country, the Taliban would not be able to stand against us,” he said. “At least a quarter of Afghanistan would be liberated within months. Just the way that we were very much right and accurate with predicting the fall of a Kabul in Afghanistan,” he added.
