By Umair Jamal
On July 3, 2025, Russia became the first major state to formally recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan’s legitimate government. This decision, framed as a strategic partnership aimed at countering the Islamic State-Khorasan (ISIS-K), seeks to employ Taliban authority to stabilize Afghanistan and curb regional terrorism. Yet, the move entails legitimizing a regime with longstanding and ongoing associations with jihadist networks, including al-Qaeda, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), and other extremist actors. These linkages, encompassing ideological affinities, logistical cooperation, and territorial safe havens, generate concern regarding the exacerbation of extremism, the destabilization of neighboring states such as Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan, and the complication of global counterterrorism strategies.
City of Kabul (Image Courtesy of Pexel)
BACKGROUND: Russia’s formal recognition of the Taliban as Afghanistan’s legitimate government on 3 July 2025 represents a significant reorientation in its Afghan policy. This decision is underpinned by Moscow’s security imperatives and broader geopolitical calculations.
After the U.S. withdrawal in August 2021, the Taliban rapidly reasserted control over Afghanistan, creating a power vacuum that has permitted diverse extremist organizations to expand within ungoverned spaces. Russia’s engagement is shaped by the Taliban’s asserted opposition to the Islamic State-Khorasan (ISIS-K), a shared adversary responsible for the March 2024 Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow, which claimed more than 140 lives. This incident highlighted ISIS-K’s transnational capabilities, leading Russia to regard the Taliban as a prospective partner in constraining its influence.
In April 2025, Russia’s Supreme Court annulled the Taliban’s terrorist designation, maintained since 2003, thereby facilitating formal recognition and reflecting a pragmatic effort to stabilize Afghanistan and safeguard Russian interests in Central Asia. The Taliban’s governance, however, remains highly contested owing to their strict enforcement of Islamic law and enduring connections with extremist organizations. The movement appears to have openly violated the 2020 Doha Agreement commitment undertaken with the international community to prevent Afghan territory from serving as a base for terrorism.
During their 1996–2001 rule, the Taliban provided sanctuary to al-Qaeda, a relationship that endures through both operational and ideological linkages, as documented in recent UN assessments. The Haqqani Network, a semi-autonomous Taliban faction under Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, remains pivotal in orchestrating attacks and sheltering terrorists. In addition to al-Qaeda and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Taliban sustain ties with organizations such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), and the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which targets China’s Xinjiang region. Since 2021, at least 21 extremist groups have exploited Afghanistan’s ungoverned spaces for training, recruitment, and logistical operations, according to the UN’s 15th Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team report.
ISIS-K, which emerged in 2015 with an estimated 4,000–6,000 combatants, persists in conducting attacks across Iran, Pakistan, and Europe, reinforcing Russia’s calculated yet precarious reliance on the Taliban to confront this threat while potentially disregarding their wider patronage of jihadist networks.
IMPLICATIONS: Russia’s recognition of the Taliban carries substantial implications for regional stability and global counterterrorism. On the one hand, it may enhance collaboration against militant organizations such as ISIS-K, which pose threats to both Russia and Central Asian states. The Taliban have undertaken operations that reduce ISIS-K’s local activity, though the group’s international reach endures, as demonstrated by the 2024 Moscow attack. On the other hand, such engagement entails risks, as legitimizing the Taliban may strengthen a regime that continues to shelter, protect, and support multiple extremist factions.
A recent United Nations assessment warns that al-Qaeda and its affiliated jihadist groups now control facilities in 14 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces and are increasingly assisting anti-Pakistani militants, such as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), in conducting cross-border attacks. Another UN report indicates that the TTP has established new training camps in Kunar, Nangarhar, Khost, and Paktika (Barmal) Provinces and is expanding recruitment within its ranks, including from the Afghan Taliban. The UN further notes that the Taliban continues to provide the TTP with logistical, operational, and financial support, with leader Noor Wali Mehsud reportedly receiving a “monthly payment” of approximately 43,000 USD. Evidence also suggests that TTP cadres sustain tactical-level ties with ISIL-K in Afghanistan while offering training and assistance to militant networks in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. Moreover, the de facto authorities in Kabul have deployed Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) combatants within law enforcement and military units to provide domestic security, particularly in northern Afghanistan.
In recent months, foreign terrorist combatants of Central Asian origin with affiliations to al-Qaeda and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan have relocated from the Syrian Arab Republic to northern Afghanistan. These fighters have been characterized as “scouts,” serving as a vanguard to establish conditions for the subsequent arrival of their families and additional militants into Afghanistan.
Moreover, the Uyghur militant organization East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), also known as the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), continues to operate within Afghanistan. According to the United Nations, ETIM enjoys “unprecedented levels of freedom” under Taliban governance. In some instances, the Taliban have relocated ETIM militants from Badakhshan, near China’s border, to other regions under pressure from Beijing. This relocation appears to constitute partial restraint rather than elimination, enabling the group and its ideology to persist in Afghanistan. The Taliban have further refused to extradite senior figures such as TIP leader Abdul Haq al-Turkistani, who remains in Kabul directing the group’s global activities, including those of its Syrian contingents. Turkistani reportedly mediates internal Taliban disputes and represents al-Qaeda in the Taliban’s Shura Majlis, particularly on military affairs. This situation directly contradicts Taliban denials of hosting foreign fighters and demonstrates high-level endorsement and protection.
Another pressing concern is that the Taliban are deploying and mobilizing foreign militant organizations such as Jamaat Ansarullah, which undermines Tajikistan’s stability, and the IMU, to combat ISIS-K in Afghanistan. This operational integration is troubling, as it demonstrates the incorporation of such groups into military roles. A recent UN assessment highlights “closer ETIM/TIP collaboration with the Taliban in Afghanistan,” encompassing alliances with TIP’s Syrian affiliate, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). The report further noted that “Regional Member States reported that, in December 2024, a three-person delegation, including one representative from ETIM/TIP, traveled from Damascus to Kabul and engaged the de facto authorities on the eastward movement of foreign terrorist fighters.” Such partnerships and dialogues indicate that the Taliban regard groups like ETIM and IMU as allies rather than adversaries, despite their destabilizing implications for Central Asia and Russian interests.
CONCLUSIONS: Russia’s recognition of the Taliban as Afghanistan’s legitimate government constitutes a high-risk gamble that may ultimately backfire by strengthening a regime deeply enmeshed with jihadist networks. United Nations reports substantiate the Taliban’s continued support for organizations such as al-Qaeda, the Haqqani Network, TTP, and ETIM, which exploit Afghanistan’s ungoverned spaces for training and cross-border operations, thereby undermining stability across Central and South Asia.
By legitimizing the Taliban, Russia may unintentionally reinforce a wider terrorist ecosystem, thereby weakening international counterterrorism norms and complicating collaboration with Western and regional partners. The Taliban’s accommodation of at least 21 extremist organizations, documented since 2021, heightens the risk of Afghanistan reemerging as a central hub of global terrorism.
To balance its security interests while mitigating associated risks, Russia should pursue a cautious and multifaceted strategy. First, it should employ platforms such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to coordinate with China, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan on intelligence exchange and border security to limit extremist spillover. Second, Moscow should make its support for the Taliban conditional upon verifiable commitments to sever links with groups such as TTP and ETIM, reinforced through targeted sanctions to ensure compliance. Third, Russia ought to engage both Pakistan and India in addressing cross-border threats posed by TTP and Kashmir-oriented organizations like LeT and JeM, fostering regional dialogue to avert escalation. Finally, it should strengthen its domestic counterterrorism capacity by investing in real-time surveillance of Afghan-based groups and reducing reliance on Taliban assurances.
By combining pragmatic engagement with rigorous oversight, Russia can advance its objective of constraining ISIS-K while avoiding the amplification of a broader jihadist threat and ensuring that Afghanistan does not further destabilize the region.
AUTHOR'S BIO: Umair Jamal is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Otago, New Zealand, and an analyst at Diplomat Risk Intelligence (DRI). His research focuses on counterterrorism and security issues in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the broader Asia region. He offers analytical consulting to various think tanks and institutional clients in Pakistan and around the world. He has published for several media outlets, including Al-Jazeera, Foreign Policy, SCMP, The Diplomat, and the Huffington Post.
