Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan following the U.S withdrawal in Aug. 2021, Al Qaeda has established training camps in five Afghan provinces, as well as safe houses and other infrastructure across the country. Al Qaeda’s resurgence since the Taliban takeover should put to rest the notion that U.S. so-called ‘over the horizon’ counterterrorism operations have restrained the group, that its ties with the Taliban have diminished, and more importantly, once and for all that the terror group has been decimated, defeated, degraded, diminished, and declined, destroyed, or dead.

The presence of Al Qaeda training camps inside Afghanistan was disclosed by the United Nations Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, which issued its latest report on Afghanistan on June 9. Several former officials of the now-defunct Government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan have previously told FDD’s Long War Journal that Al Qaeda was running training camps in Afghanistan, but were unable to provide the locations of the camps.

According to the UN, the Al Qaeda camps are located in five provinces in five different regions of Afghanistan: Helmand in the south, Zabul in the southeast, Nangarhar in the east, Nuristan in the northeast, as well as Badghis in the west.