Al-Qaeda is back in Afghanistan. It is a threat to Christians around the world

When US and UK troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban promised that foreign terrorists would never again find a home in the country. Now a new UN report says al-Qaeda is alive and well in Afghanistan once more. Here’s what it means for Christians there and around the world

Everyone remembers where they were when they heard the terrible news about the 9/11 terror attacks. I was about to pick up my boss who had just flown into the UK. We had both worked in Afghanistan for Christian development organisations. That afternoon, we walked around my garden discussing what the future meant if, as seemed likely, the awful events unfolding on our TV screen had been carried out by al-Qaeda, who were then hosted by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

What happened next is history. The western military intervention was designed to prevent any such attacks on the West ever being carried out from Afghanistan again. The central part of the 2020 US deal with the Taliban, agreed by President Trump and implemented by President Biden, was that the US would withdraw its forces in exchange for the Taliban guaranteeing that foreign terrorist organisations, such as al-Qaeda, would never be allowed on Afghan soil again.