In addition to the symbolism, the topicality came: As if the twentieth anniversary of September 11th was not a cause for joy for Islamists and America-haters anyway, the dramatic failure in Afghanistan has once again increased the feeling of triumph.

After all, everything was interrelated: 9/11, Osama bin Laden, the war in the Hindu Kush, the Taliban, Al-Qaeda.

And now it looks as if America's worst hour was followed, with a two-decade delay, by the worst foreign policy and military disgrace in the West.

Christian Meier

Editor in politics.

  • Follow I follow

The question is: will this also give a boost to global jihad again?

Bin Laden has been dead for ten years, his successor has remained pale, and there have been no spectacular attacks in western metropolises for some time.

But a look at the globe shows that the ideology of the holy war is very much alive - and so is the practice.

But it has changed since 2001: the jihad scene has diversified and changed its approaches in response to the fight against terrorism.

Today, most jihadist actors focus on exploiting local instabilities and digging into gaps opened up by poor governance.

The al-Qaeda leadership congratulated the Taliban

This is how the resurgence of the Taliban took place. Corruption, abuse of power and the cooperation of the Western powers with the old warlords prepared the ground for the propaganda of the Islamist insurgents that they could rule the country better than the “puppet government” in Kabul. Now the Taliban have to prove themselves.

Islamists around the world have already hailed the change of power in Afghanistan - as a blow to the West and as a blueprint for their own ambitions.

The leadership of Al-Qaeda congratulated the Taliban on the "great victory" and wrote in a message that it was the "prelude" for further successes for Muslims elsewhere and the end of "American-European arrogance".

A leading member of the Syrian jihad group Hai'at Tahrir al-Sham (Committee for the Liberation of the Levant) wrote a poem on the occasion of the invasion of Kabul.

And Abu Maria al-Qahtani, another leader of the militant Islamists, called for an “Islamic axis” to be formed with the Taliban as well as Pakistan and Turkey.

Al-Qaeda weakened in Afghanistan

The psychological effect of the Taliban's victory cannot be overlooked and should not be underestimated. But how big will the concrete consequences be? There are thousands of foreign fighters in the ranks of the Taliban. And many other jihadists who were in Afghan prisons were released in the wake of the Taliban's conquests. They could all use their international networks better than before and thus strengthen the jihad ideology. Another question is whether Afghanistan will again be an organizational center of global Islamist terrorism as it was twenty years ago. In their agreement with the USA in February 2020, the Taliban pledged that they would no longer allow this to happen. However, most experts do not believe the assurances.The ties to the al-Qaeda members who remained in Afghanistan are still considered to be close, according to the assessment of the secret services.