Preventing International Terrorism in a Post-War Afghanistan: Lessons from Syria and Yemen

On April 14th, President Joe Biden announced the absolute withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan by September 11th, 2021: the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks which prompted the American invasion of Afghanistan. The announcement comes as the Taliban has increasingly gained control of the war-weary country, especially following their negotiated peace agreement with the Trump administration in February 2020. President Biden made the decision even after the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that the Taliban would surge back to power within a few years of American troops withdrawing. Biden, for his part, insisted that new security threats have emerged which require a fundamentally new strategy. In his own words: “Rather than return to war with the Taliban … we have to track and disrupt terrorist networks and operations that spread far beyond Afghanistan since 9/11”. 

All of this prompts the question of whether international terrorist groups will once again find haven in Afghanistan if the Taliban succeeds in retaking power. Most notoriously, al-Qaeda was able to organize, recruit, and plan the 9/11 attacks under the protection of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, before being ousted by the U.S. invasion in 2001. Although the Taliban had promised to prevent its territory from being used for international terrorism under its 2020 agreement with the Trump administration, analysts remain wary of anything said on paper while the insurgent group maintains close ties with al-Qaeda. 

Seeking Solutions in Syria

Several thousand miles away in northwestern Syria, the problem of preventing international terrorism under Islamist governance sees a unique solution. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Salafi militant group fighting both the Syrian regime and the official Syrian opposition, has consolidated control of rebel-held Idlib province since 2019. Prior to 2019, the province was governed by a patchwork of local factions and groups opposed to the Syrian regime, including many groups linked to or associated with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Despite its own Salafist ideology, HTS’ consolidation of this territory not only eliminated these groups, but actually replaced them with a technocratic order under the newly proclaimed “Syrian Salvation Government” (SSG) that does not impose HTS’ religious ideology on the population. Women are not required to cover their heads, for instance. HTS has worked to prevent northwest Syria from becoming a hub for international terrorism by eliminating other militant Islamist groups and by constraining ideological radicalism within its own ranks. 

But why has HTS, itself originally a terrorist group in the conventional sense, transformed into this moderate force? Much has to do with incentives created by the international community. Since March 2020, Turkey, HTS’ primary sponsor in the region, has pressured HTS to prevent international terrorist groups from operating in its territory. Turkey has substantial leverage over HTS through its own troop presence in Idlib, which serves as a barrier against further advance by the Syrian regime’s forces. HTS’ transformation in this sense can be clearly observed after Turkey reached an agreement with Russia and Syria in March 2020, which stopped the Syrian regime’s advance (and an ensuing humanitarian crisis on Turkey’s border) in exchange for Russia’s demand of the elimination of militant jihadist groups in Idlib. At this point, HTS began its campaign to eliminate al-Qaeda affiliate Hurras al-Din. It has also created a new body of clerics to limit ideological radicalism within its rank and file as well. In return, HTS continues to receive support from Turkey and has increasingly come to be viewed as a respectable actor in the Syrian conflict by the international community. HTS’ terrorism prevention thus explicitly requires incentives from state actors and the wider international community. 

Yemen: A Failure to Control Islamist Factions

Meanwhile in Yemen, the international community faced the same problem of international terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) operating in a lawless territory. Due to Yemen’s civil war, by 2016, AQAP came to directly control up to 400 miles of territory along the southeastern coast, including some of Yemen’s largest cities. Since then, and especially under the Trump administration, the UAE and the United States have been involved in an extensive effort to root out AQAP in Yemen. Through aerial bombardment and alliances with local and tribal militias, AQAP had largely been rendered a shell of its former self by 2018. 

However, in recent months, AQAP is once again seeing a resurgence in activity. This time, its growth has been based upon support from Yemen’s Muslim Brotherhood chapter, al-Islah. Although al-Islah and AQAP have long had ties, dating back to the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, the two had largely parted ways in the Yemeni Civil War. Notably, al-Islah and its militias had been an uneasy ally of the Saudis in their intervention against the Houthis in Yemen, despite al-Islah being a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate. Saudi Arabia had pressured al-Islah to avoid outright cooperation with AQAP against the Houthis, in order to secure continued American support for the Saudi intervention. This had largely worked, and in context with the UAE-U.S. strikes against AQAP, the terrorist group had largely been decimated. 

Now, in the wake of the Saudis publicly criticizing the Muslim Brotherhood for the first time since 2014 this past November, the already uneasy alliance with al-Islah has been deemed “over”. Al-Islah and its militias are now instead openly working with al-Qaeda, and have offered their territory as bases of operation. In this context, in the months following the Saudi’s denunciation of the Muslim Brotherhood, AQAP has been able to launch a slew of recent attacks for the first time in years. The Saudis alienation of al-Islah has thus resulted in a potentially useful Islamist ally in the fight against terrorism sponsoring that very terrorism, reflecting the delicate balance required from state actors to control militant Islamist groups while preventing terrorism. 

Lessons for Afghanistan

From the case studies in Syria and Yemen, it becomes clear that a very careful balance of incentives is required in order to prevent terrorism under militant Islamist rule. In Idlib, HTS must rely on Turkish troops to defend against invasion by the Syrian regime. In return, Turkey has forced HTS to dismantle jihadist networks and prevent northwestern Syria from being turned into a launching pad for international terrorism. Meanwhile in Yemen, it is apparent that even verbal criticism is enough to break the tense alliance between states and militant groups, triggering recidivism into terrorism. 

For the Biden administration, Syria provides proof that militant Islamist governance does not necessarily lead to international jihadist terrorism. Lessons from Syria and Yemen can serve as an important guide for how to prevent Afghanistan from once again turning into a haven for terrorism if the Taliban return to power. The U.S. must create proper incentives for the Taliban to avoid sponsoring groups like al-Qaeda: the costs of doing so must outweigh the benefits. Although the U.S. may not directly be able to influence the Taliban’s actions, especially after withdrawing troops, it may be able to place pressure on one of their historical sponsors: Pakistan. It’s no secret that the Taliban rely on Pakistani support for their continued success in Afghanistan. If the U.S. is thus able to pressure Pakistan to keep a watchful eye on terrorist activity in Afghanistan and threaten to revoke its support for the Taliban, it can partially replicate the Idlib model and ensure that the Taliban avoids once again sponsoring groups like al-Qaeda. But as demonstrated by Yemen, threatening to withdraw support for any armed Islamist group must be carefully done, as it always carries the potential to backfire.