The kinetic successes achieved as part of the Global War on Terror over a quarter of a century, while critical in the fight against global terrorism, have been significantly outpaced by the evolving nature of violent extremism, geopolitical fissures, and the opposing interests of some key players. These factors have threatened to undermine the counter-terror campaign’s legacy.

A critical examination of the Global War on Terror, launched in response to the 9/11 terror attacks in September 2001, reveals that not only have subsequent American administrations been challenged in eliminating the ideological fervour that drives and sustains violent extremist movements, but the post-9/11 counter-violent extremist framework itself has become fractured.

The Council on Foreign Relations, in an evaluation of the terrorism landscape 25 years after 9/11, notes that

the United States marks the anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil with a stunning lack of preparedness to handle mounting new threats and resurgent old ones. … Combined with the weaponization of social media by digitally savvy terrorists, the country faces the phenomenon of increasingly lethal autonomous weapons and emerging populations of radicalized youth.[1]

Moreover, increasing geopolitical polarisation and contestations have prevented state actors from cooperating on overlapping security concerns. It was the 9/11 terror attacks executed by Osama bin Laden-led Al-Qaeda and the refuge the movement found in Taliban 1.0-led Afghanistan that triggered the Global War on Terror 25 years ago. However, the initiative has gradually hollowed out because it could not accommodate changing realities.

Despite the kinetic successes achieved in decapitating the key leadership of parent terror organisations, particularly Al-Qaeda and later even the proto-state established by ISIS in Syria and Iraq, the Global War on Terror has left behind a complex legacy. In Afghanistan, there was a dependency on hard power and the imposition of a top-down Western democratic model in a highly decentralised tribal society. The invasion of Iraq and allowing Nouri al-Maliki, the former Iraqi Prime Minister, to cultivate deep-rooted sectarian fissures created conditions for the surge of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, later rebranded as ISIS.

An uneasy alliance was also forged with Pakistan. Despite being an active—albeit reluctant—member of the United States’ war on terror, it aided and abetted the sustenance of the Afghan Taliban, including members of the Haqqani network, who were directly pitted against allied forces between 2001 and 2021. Pakistan’s tribal areas acted as hubs that housed Taliban soldiers and leaders for two decades, while the state machinery was complicit in providing them with operational and logistical support for their campaign against allied forces. Furthermore, documented records reveal that the Afghan Taliban, in the run-up to the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, provided sanctuary to Al-Qaeda’s rank and file and refused to hand over bin Laden to American authorities.[2]

Today, not only is the Afghan Taliban back in power in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of allied forces in August 2021, but they are also the primary force that the United States is informally relying on to neutralise Islamic State in Khorasan Province, a regional affiliate of ISIS. The United Nations Security Council meeting held in June 2026 underscored the persisting concern of the continued presence of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.[3] This comes despite the Taliban regime previously assuring........

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