If Taliban returns to power in Afghanistan, other terrorist organisations including Al-Qaeda will not be far behind to take on the mantle of the next global jihadist group or leader, said a Canada-based think tank.
In its report, International Forum For Right And Security (IFFRAS) said: "With the Taliban returning to Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda or a similar global jihadi movement would not be far behind. There may not be a Osama bin Laden or a Mullah Omar but there are countless others who are too eager to take on the mantle of the next global jihadist leader, most likely enjoying the patronage of Pakistan at present, waiting in the wings for the Taliban to come to power in Kabul."
IFFRAS further noted that the international community must own the responsibility for letting the Taliban become a monster again.
"The US and other countries, engaged in keeping the Taliban at bay in Afghanistan, since October 2001, were warned by friendly countries of Pakistan's deceit in keeping the flames of terror alive while pretending to help the international forces in stemming terrorism. It was a big deceit played by Pakistan and accepted into by the international community. It was the discovery and killing of Osama bin Laden inside a military garrison town in Pakistan that opened the eyes of the world to Pakistan's treachery. Yet no attention was paid to Pakistan's continuous support of the Taliban, transforming a militant force that had been razed to the ground, to rise again," the think tank said.
IFFRAS also said that if the Taliban comes to power once again then the sacrifices of thousands of people and security personnel would have gone to waste.
"It must not be allowed to happen, or the deaths of thousands of people and sacrifices of thousands of security personnel would have gone waste," it said adding that the world will be back into the throes of a new global jihadi campaign, more brutal and devastating than the past.
The Pak-sponsored Taliban has always acted as the vanguard of global jihad. It was so before 2001 and it is so even today as it runs through Afghanistan, capturing cities, holding communities hostage to its diktat and undoing decades of nation-building from the ashes of a ravaging war, IFFRAS further said.
The recent intensification of a conflict with the Afghan Government, the Taliban continues to violate human rights unabatedly by killing civilians, destroying mosques and assaulting women.
After capturing new areas in Afghanistan, the Taliban has re-imposed repressive laws and retrograde policies on Afghan women that defined its 1996-2001 rule when they enforced their version of Islamic Sharia law.
Terrorists belonging to the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) are active in Kunar and Nangarhar provinces in Eastern Afghanistan and Helmand and Kandahar provinces particularly in the southeast of the country, the IFFRAS had asserted earlier report.
( With inputs from ANI )
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