"'In 2021, ISIS-K was reduced to a couple of cells in the country and a very tiny, small stronghold in Kunar Province, and that was it. However, in the less than stellar handover procedure, in that chaos, the Taliban opened the prisons, including Bagram, which was a big mistake … they underestimated that there were also a couple of thousand ISIS-K members, who, once freed, just walked off,' said Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director of the Counter Extremism Project, who served as a member and then as coordinator of the UN Security Council’s ISIL, al Qaeda and Taliban Monitoring Team.

'The organization was very diligently able to reestablish itself.'"

CEP Senior Advisor & CEP Senior Director Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler write: "Political instability in one country will inevitably have a particularly strong spillover effect across its borders. The takeover of power by the Taliban in August 2021 and the re-establishment of their regime in Afghanistan represented a shock to regional and transnational security dynamics, with neighbouring countries fearing that activities of Islamist terrorist groups present in Afghanistan would spill over into their territory. The Taliban maintain close ties with Islamist terrorist groups, essentially acting as their protector."

The TTP maintains links with the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda, according to think tank Counter Extremism Project (CEP).

The CEP says, 'As an ally of the Afghan Taliban, the TTP also fought the US-backed Afghan government prior to the latter’s defeat in August 2021. The TTP was founded in late 2007 by a group of Pakistani militants who had previously fought in Afghanistan alongside both the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and the group has maintained close ties to both organizations since.'"

"'It is considered a branch of the Afghan Taliban but operates independently and has a more diffuse command structure,' reports The Counter Extremism Project. 'After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Jalaluddin Haqqani formed an alliance with the Taliban and supported the growth of al-Qaeda. Even before Osama bin Laden moved his base of operations to Afghanistan, Haqqani took the extraordinary step of issuing communiqués and appeals for alliance with al-Qaeda affiliates across Africa.'"