In February 2020, in a conference room in Doha, the Taliban put their signature on a promise. In exchange for the withdrawal of foreign troops, they committed that Afghan soil would never again be used to threaten the security of the United States or its allies. It was the single most important guarantee the group ever gave the world. Four years into Taliban rule, it is worth asking a blunt question: was that promise ever real, or was it simply the price of getting foreign troops out the door?

The answer that emerges from Afghanistan's current security landscape is not encouraging.

Start with the group the Doha deal was written for. Al-Qaeda's core leadership has not vanished from Afghanistan. It has persisted, quietly, inside a movement it has fought alongside for over two decades. The Taliban and Al-Qaeda are bound by history, marriage alliances, and shared ideology in ways that are difficult to unwind with a signature on paper. When the United States killed Al-Qaeda's leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in a 2022 drone strike, he was not hiding in a remote cave, he was living in a house in central Kabul, reportedly linked to a senior Taliban official's network. That single fact says more about the durability of the old alliance than any Taliban statement since.

The........

© The Express Tribune