"Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director of the Counter Extremism Project and former coordinator of the ISIL, al-Qaida, and Taliban Monitoring Team of the UN Security Council, told The Media Line that the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan last August has led to a significant change in al-Qaida’s approach to its operations.

He explained that since bin Laden’s death and with the rise of his successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida became decentralized. At the same time, it has managed to expand through affiliates, stepping back from centralized, large-scale terrorist operations against the West, and concentrating on creating a broader base in Islamic countries."