Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers are maintaining close ties with al-Qaeda as they consolidate control over the country, and their main military threat is coming from the Islamic State extremist group and guerrilla-style attacks by former Afghan government security personnel, UN experts said in a new report.
The experts said in the report to the UN Security Council that with the onset of better weather, fighting may escalate as both Islamic State and resistance forces undertake operations against Taliban forces.
But neither IS nor al-Qaeda “is believed to be capable of mounting international attacks before 2023 at the earliest, regardless of their intent or of whether the Taliban acts to restrain them,” the panel of experts said.
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