The UN Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team in its latest 1267 report on Afghanistan (dated 13 February 2025) stated that the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Tajik extremist group Jamaat Ansarullah have established training camps in Afghanistan with the support of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. 

The camps are said to be in addition to al-Qaeda-operated facilities previously identified by the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team. The Team also revealed new TTP and Jamaat Ansarullah training camps in the Afghan provinces of Khost, Kunar, Nangarhar, Paktika and Takhar, and pointed to the presence of two foreign jihadist groups in the country. According to the latest report, al-Qaeda and its affiliated jihadist groups now control facilities in 14 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. In previous reports, the Monitoring Group identified al-Qaeda camps operating in 12 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, a number that is growing.

The Monitoring Group’s latest and previous reports directly contradict the Taliban’s repeated claims that it does not harbor or support foreign terror groups. The TTP routinely launches attacks in Pakistan, while JA is devoted to overthrowing the Tajik government. 

At the same time, al-Qaeda retains its status as a transnational terrorist group that encourages other terrorist groups to take the path of global jihad.

TTP Strongholds and Support for the Afghan Taliban

 

According to the UN report, the TTP has established new training centres in Kunar, Nangarhar, Khost and Paktika (Barmal) Provinces while enhancing recruitment within TTP cadres, including from the Afghan Taliban. As of June 2023, Al Qaeda was known to have trained and supplied ideological guidance to TTP fighters in suicide bomber training camps in Kunar Province.

Foreign observers have previously failed to detect foreign terrorist group facilities in Khost and Paktika provinces, which are controlled by the powerful Haqqani Network, an al-Qaeda-linked militant group allied with the TTP.

The Haqqani Network is an autonomous wing of the Taliban and the movement’s most hardline faction. It is led by Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is also the interior minister in the interim government of Afghanistan. Despite previously receiving significant support from Pakistan, Haqqani and the Afghan Taliban do not stop TTP violence when the group's militants attack Pakistani government forces.

 

In the meantime, the report notes that the ambition and scale of TTP attacks in Pakistan have grown significantly, as they launched more than 600 attacks during the reporting period, including from Afghan territory.

UN experts say the Taliban continued to provide logistical, operational and financial support to the TTP, and the group's leader Noor Wali Mehsud receives a "monthly payment" of about $43,000 from the movement.

The Afghan Taliban and TTP have grown increasingly close over the decade of war, both inside Afghanistan and in the Pakistani borderlands. The TTP leader has pledged allegiance to the Taliban emir and declared that his group was part of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the name of the Taliban's unrecognized state). The TTP helped the Afghan Taliban fight the US and the previous Afghan government and is widely believed to have sanctuaries in eastern Afghanistan.

Jamaat Ansarullah Camps and Units in Afghanistan

According to a UN monitoring report, Jamaat Ansarullah, also known as the “Tajik Taliban,” operates training camps in Afghanistan’s Khost province. It has al-Qaeda instructors and weapons experts at its disposal. There is also evidence of a special military center in the Kalafgan district of Takhar province to train fighters from Central Asian and Arab countries.

Jamaat Ansarullah has also created a unit known as Ansar, based in the Imam Sahib district of Kunduz. The unit’s mission is to “infiltrate border areas,” presumably Tajikistan. Imam Sahib borders Tajikistan and is known as a stronghold of the Taliban and Jamaat Ansarullah.

The group is also known for its involvement in a joint operation with the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the Faizabad district of Badakhshan province. According to the Monitoring Group, Jamaat Ansarullah and al-Qaeda militants were deployed with a suicide bomber unit from the Lashkar-e-Mansuri Martyrs Battalion to combat Afghan opposition groups.

Jamaat Ansarullah emerged in Tajikistan in 2006 as an offshoot of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) targeting Tajikistan. The terrorist organization aims to overthrow the government in Dushanbe and establish an Islamist regime in the country. Jamaat Ansarullah has been active in northern Afghanistan since its inception, receiving support from the IMU and the Taliban. Even after its leader, Mullah Amriddin Tabarov, was killed by Afghan government forces in 2015, the group maintained a presence in Afghanistan, including training centers.

According to open sources, the current leader of Jamaat Ansarullah is Mahdi Arsalan (real name Mohammad Sharifov). In 2015, he arrived in Afghanistan and joined the group’s militants, who are conducting subversive activities against the Tajik government. Arsalan believes that only “jihad” can destroy the existing Tajik regime, replacing it with an Islamic Emirate governed by a radical interpretation of Sharia law. During the Taliban offensive in the summer of 2021, the movement's leadership sanctioned the transfer of five districts of the northern province of Badakhshan to the control of Arsalan.