{"id":23348,"date":"2026-09-12T13:23:55","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T13:23:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/?p=23348"},"modified":"2026-09-12T13:23:55","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T13:23:55","slug":"25-years-after-9-11-al-qaida-and-terror-camps-have-returned-to-afghanistan-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/?p=23348","title":{"rendered":"25 years after 9\/11, al-Qaida and terror camps have returned to Afghanistan: US"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"e9jwa\">\n<div class=\"vdo_embedd\">\n<div class=\"GfdvZ\">\n<section class=\"_bIDB  clearfix id-r-component leadmedia undefined undefined  E9tg9 \" style=\"top:0px\">\n<div class=\"_bIDB\" data-ua-type=\"1\" onclick=\"stpPgtnAndPrvntDefault(event)\">\n<div class=\"ypVvZ\">\n<div class=\"WGttI\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/thumb\/msid-134132516,imgsize-892117,width-400,height-225,resizemode-4\/file-photo.jpg\" alt=\"25 years after 9\/11, al-Qaida and terror camps have returned to Afghanistan: US\" title=\"Al-Qaida and terrorist training camps are back in Afghanistan\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"Ta7d_ img_cptn\"><span title=\"Al-Qaida and terrorist training camps are back in Afghanistan\">Al-Qaida and terrorist training camps are back in Afghanistan<\/span><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span class=\"strong\" data-ua-type=\"1\" onclick=\"stpPgtnAndPrvntDefault(event)\">TOI correspondent from Washington<\/span>: <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/topic\/al-qaida\" styleobj=\"[object Object]\" class=\"\" commonstate=\"[object Object]\" frmappuse=\"1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Al-Qaida<\/a> and terrorist training camps are back in Afghanistan 25 years after 9\/11.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"4\"\/>The terrorist organisation and its affiliates have established at least eight training sites in Afghanistan over the past three years, exploiting the security vacuum created by the <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/topic\/taliban\" styleobj=\"[object Object]\" class=\"\" commonstate=\"[object Object]\" frmappuse=\"1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Taliban<\/a>\u2019s return to power and the US withdrawal in 2021, the Washington Post reported on Saturday.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"9\"\/>UN monitors and Western intelligence officials say the camps are being used for weapons, explosives, guerrilla warfare and increasingly sophisticated instruction involving encryption, drones and artificial intelligence.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"11\"\/>Core al-Qaida now numbers perhaps 100 fighters and is functioning less as an expeditionary army than as a &#8220;consulting service&#8221; for other militants. Other terror groups, including an affiliate of the Islamic State, al-Qaida\u2019s main rival, also have set up new training sites, giving \u201cmilitant Islamist groups\u201d a foothold in at least 14 of Afghanistan\u2019s 34 provinces, the report said.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"15\"\/>For New Delhi, the most unsettling part of the Post\u2019s wake-up call on al-Qaida\u2019s revival is not that the terror group is rebuilding training camps; it is that the geography, networks and regional ecosystem surrounding those camps look hauntingly familiar.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"17\"\/>India endured terrorist violence throughout the 1990s and 2000s while the American public was only beginning to wake up to the transnational jihadist threat, so this is less a new chapter than an old warning with updated technology because the al-Qaida story is deeply intertwined with Pakistan.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"20\"\/>The 9\/11 Commission documented how Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, met Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Pakistan and was eventually captured in Islamabad in 1995. KSM \u2013 a Pakistani national mistakenly described as Kuwaiti because he was born there \u2013 himself lived in Pakistan before moving to Afghanistan, where he met Osama bin Laden and presented the idea that became the 9\/11 operation. He remains imprisoned in Guantanamo.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"23\"\/>Other senior al-Qaida figures followed similar trajectories. Abu Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan in 2002 as was Ramzi bin al-Shibh; KSM was captured in Rawalpindi the following year. And bin Laden himself, the man who had spent years as the world&#8217;s most wanted terrorist, was finally found not in some inaccessible Afghan cave but in Abbottabad, Pakistan, less than two miles from the country&#8217;s premier military academy.<!-- --> US forces killed him there in May 2011.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"27\"\/>That history gives Indian analysts pause when Washington&#8217;s gaze once again settles overwhelmingly on Afghanistan \u2014 and, unsurprisingly now, Iran &#8212; because the US typically takes a more benign view of client states such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The Post reports that al-Qaida&#8217;s current leader, Egyptian Saif al-Adel, is believed to be hiding in Iran.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"29\"\/>New Delhi has often questioned why Pakistan&#8217;s role in the movement&#8217;s historical infrastructure so often receives less sustained scrutiny; Afghanistan is landlocked, but it is not hermetically sealed. <!-- -->It borders Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and China. Historically, however, Pakistan has been the principal southern gateway connecting Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea and the wider world.<!-- --> Peshawar, Karachi and the tribal belt repeatedly figured in the logistics of the Afghan jihad and later transnational militancy.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"34\"\/>While this does not make Pakistan responsible for every terrorist who passed through it, it does, however, make Pakistan a key part of the story. <!-- -->The 1993 Bombay bombings, the 2001 attack on Parliament and, later, the 2008 Mumbai attacks were part of a long continuum of terrorism in South Asia.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"38\"\/>The Indian government has repeatedly described Pakistan-based militant organizations with ties to a wider &#8220;jihad&#8221; as a central component of that threat. The 26\/11 attackers, for example, departed from Karachi, hijacked an Indian fishing vessel and sailed to Mumbai to carry out one of the bloodiest terrorist attacks in history. <!-- -->US authorities subsequently described LET as responsible for the attacks but have moved at a snail\u2019s pace in helping bring the masterminds of the attack to justice.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"43\"\/>While the LeT itself was established in Afghanistan&#8217;s Kunar province in 1986, it subsequently focused its attention on India. Abu Zubaydah, a senior al-Qaida operative, was captured at an LeT safehouse in Faisalabad, demonstrating that the two networks could overlap operationally.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"45\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/world\/us\/25-years-after-9\/11-al-qaida-and-terror-camps-have-returned-to-afghanistan-us\/articleshow\/134131985.cms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Al-Qaida and terrorist training camps are back in Afghanistan TOI correspondent from Washington: Al-Qaida and terrorist training camps are back in Afghanistan 25 years after 9\/11.The terrorist organisation and its affiliates have established at least eight training sites in Afghanistan over the past three years, exploiting the security vacuum created by the Taliban\u2019s return to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-31"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789219439_file-photo.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789219439_file-photo.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789219439_file-photo.jpg","large":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789219439_file-photo.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789219439_file-photo.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789219439_file-photo.jpg","blogsy-small":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789219439_file-photo.jpg","blogsy-small-tall":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789219439_file-photo.jpg","blogsy-small-square":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789219439_file-photo.jpg","blogsy-small-masonry":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789219439_file-photo.jpg","blogsy-medium":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789219439_file-photo.jpg","blogsy-medium-masonry":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789219439_file-photo.jpg","blogsy-large":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789219439_file-photo.jpg","blogsy-wide":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789219439_file-photo.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"admin","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8709732a479614e7a8aa24d3eb1b239f30dc6d90c61464ed495001e7a469d856?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"Al-Qaida and terrorist training camps are back in Afghanistan TOI correspondent from Washington: Al-Qaida and terrorist training camps are back in Afghanistan 25 years after 9\/11.The terrorist organisation and its affiliates have established at least eight training sites in Afghanistan over the past three years, exploiting the security vacuum created by the Taliban\u2019s return to [&hellip;]","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["\u0b26\u0b47\u0b36 \u0b2c\u0b3f\u0b26\u0b47\u0b36"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":1,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":4,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789219439_file-photo.jpg",400,225,false],"medium":["https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789219439_file-photo.jpg",300,169,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789219439_file-photo.jpg",150,84,false]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/author\/admin"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8709732a479614e7a8aa24d3eb1b239f30dc6d90c61464ed495001e7a469d856?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"<a href=\"#\" class=\"category-link category-link-31\">\u0b26\u0b47\u0b36 \u0b2c\u0b3f\u0b26\u0b47\u0b36<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}