Jihadists in Afghanistan “are in full swing preparing a new September 11”.

That’s the understanding of sources cited by a Russian political scientist, who, quizzed on latest developments in the conflict-riven country, also remarked that “I have no doubt that the Taliban regime will fall, and it will fall relatively soon”.

Andrey Serenko, head of the Russian Centre for Contemporary Afghanistan Study, shared his thoughts and analysis with Tajikistan’s Asia-Plus newspaper for an interview published on September 11, the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on the US that took the lives of nearly 3,000 people.

Serenko told the publication: “Our sources say that today the jihadists are in full swing preparing a new September 11. Last year, the leader of Afghan ISIS said that they need their own September 11, that is, a very loud terrorist attack with a huge number of victims, and they are actively planning it.

“Where it will happen, in what country, in what form – we do not know. But preparations are under way, that's for sure, and they are planning something comparable to the terrorist attacks in New York, using the respite gained from the war in Ukraine.”

In August 2021, as the US and allies withdrew their last troops from Afghanistan and the Taliban fundamentalists retook power in Kabul, bne IntelliNews’ Istanbul Blog wrote how “in 2021, we are back with the nightmare that is Afghanistan, but this time things look much more serious than they were two decades ago” and observed: “Tremendously important is that Afghanistan will now be the global centre for war and jihadism, replacing the Syria and Libya of the past decade… ‘terror’ will occur across the globe in the coming period. Bombs will explode everywhere.”

Serenko, who has previously been quoted by media outlets including the BBC and Financial Times, confirmed the widespread analysis that since the American exit from Afghanistan, jihadist fighters from near and far have poured into Afghanistan.

And he said: “Jihadists [in Afghanistan] are learning all the new technologies, looking at the experience of the Ukraine war and the war in Gaza. For example, many new camps have been opened for training in the use of drones. And the world community is completely inactive, so the only hope lies with the resistance forces [who want to take power from the Taliban]. Otherwise, terrorism from Afghanistan will quickly spread around the world.”

Serenko says the Taliban's days back in charge in Kabul are numbered (Credit: VoA, public domain).

The analyst—who assessed that there are at least  20 jihadist groups in Afghanistan, including ISIS, Al-Qaeda, the “Uyghur group that unnerves China and many others”—said that China, which shares a short border with Afghanistan, as well as Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and others hope that the Taliban will be able to in some way stop the dangerous jihadist activity.

However, Serenko advised that the Taliban is limited in what it can manage, saying: “They are wonderful ‘jihadi businessmen’ and love to tell tales about their omnipotence, but this is just an advertisement exaggerating their influence. The Taliban can control Jamaat Ansarullah, [a group] consisting of several hundred militants, mostly from Tajikistan, but it is much more difficult to cope with Islamic State – Khorasan Province group [ISKP, or ISIS-K, the Afghanistan-based regional branch of Islamic State].”

ISIS-K, he added, “has a kind of agreement with the Taliban. ISIS minimizes the terror in Afghanistan itself – although the Taliban do not prohibit them from killing Shiites – in exchange for the Taliban turning a blind eye to terrorist attacks outside Afghanistan”.

ISIS-K sprung to world attention in March when a terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall in outer Moscow, allegedly committed by four Tajik migrant gunmen, left more than 140 dead. Prior to that, in January in Iran, nearly 100 were killed when two suicide ISIS-K bombers attacked a commemorative ceremony for top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani who was killed in a US drone strike in 2020.

A week after the attack in Iran, Central Asia expert Bruce Pannier warned in an article for bne IntelliNews that Tajikistan was proving a fertile recruiting ground for Islamic extremists.

Explaining his conviction that the Taliban regime’s days are numbered, Serenko said that in Afghanistan “there will inevitably be a clash between the Taliban, ISIS and the resistance, that is, unfortunately, there will be another civil war”.

NRF leader Ahmad Massoud, aka the "Young Lion of Panjshir" (Credit: Hamid Mohammadi, cc-by-sa 4.0).

According to Serenko, the resistance is nowadays mainly represented by two forces, the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF), led by ethnic Tajik Ahmad Massoud, sometimes referred to as the “Young Lion of Panjshir”, and the Afghanistan Freedom Front (AFF), reportedly partly led by Lieutenant General Yasin Zia, another ethnic Tajik, who served as chief of general staff and acting defence minister under the US-backed Afghan government that fled as the Taliban marched on Kabul three years ago.

“Both Massoud's people and Zia's people are very determined,” said Serenko. “They intend to fight for the liberation of their country from the rule of the Taliban, and I hope that all countries in the region will understand this sooner or later and will work with the resistance forces.”

“It is obvious,” concluded Serenko, “that the resistance forces are the only ones who can build a normal, civilised country and a modern state. Whoever supports them first will then be able to realise their interests in Afghanistan.”