The Taliban Are Back. Now Will They Restrain or Support Al Qaeda?

The United States invaded Afghanistan 20 years ago in response to terrorism, and many worry that Al Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups will again find safe haven there.

BRUSSELS — The United States and NATO invaded Afghanistan 20 years ago in response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 by Al Qaeda, harbored by the Taliban. Now that the Taliban are back in power, there are already worries that Afghanistan will again become a breeding ground for Islamist radicalism and terrorism, aided by new technologies and social media. “We went into Afghanistan to address the terrorist threat, and it will be a critical measure of whether what we have is just a bad situation or a truly awful one,” said John Sawers, former head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service, known as MI6. “To have a friend of terrorists, which Taliban have been, running a whole country is not a good thing.”