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Twenty five years ago, Osama bin Laden led the planning of al-Qaeda’s attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, from a Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan, where he lived as their guest.

Now, the Taliban rule over Afghanistan once again, trying to present a more modern face to the world.

But despite the veneer, the Taliban have not changed their ideology, and armed groups, including dozens of al-Qaeda members, remain in Afghanistan. Many of the conditions that made the Sept. 11 attacks possible remain.

The Taliban outlasted the U.S. war to oust them and are now ruling over 45 million Afghans. They use the latest iPhones to contact European and U.S. diplomats. They travel to the Persian Gulf and Turkey, and promote trade with Uzbekistan and India. Their fighters now patrol Afghanistan’s cities, some using abandoned U.S. military gear.

And when Taliban officials receive foreign visitors in their gilded offices in Kabul, the capital, they insist that they want peaceful relations with the world. They repeat the commitments they made in 2020 during peace talks with the United States, not to allow another major attack to take root on Afghan soil.

“We consider the chapter of war to have come to an end,” Afghanistan’s foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, said in a recent interview in Kabul.

But the United States, the European Union and most other governments are not ready to trust them.

Their promises about security are similar to the ones Mullah Mohammad Omar, then the Taliban’s leader, made months before 9/11, when he told a journalist that bin Laden “does not operate against anyone from the soil of Afghanistan.”

Al-Qaeda and other militant groups remain in Afghanistan, although without a leader as powerful as bin Laden and without their past influence over the Taliban.

And there is a troubling intelligence vacuum. Security officials and diplomats acknowledge that they lack the full picture of what is happening inside Afghanistan. It has again become a dark room where, they warn, new threats could emerge unnoticed.

What security means now

In conversation, Afghans often describe life in their country by what it is no longer: at war. Roads are safe. Mining deals are welcome. The sound of gunfire is less common. Civilians are no longer in constant danger of being killed by drones or crossfire, though the threat from unexploded devices remains. Kabul has seen an influx of new money and new restaurants that mimic the glitter of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

That is the Taliban’s message: Calm, not chaos, permeates Afghanistan.

But that is only one part of the story. Extremist armed groups still have a home in Afghanistan, according to the United States, China, Russia, and the United Nations.

The militant threat in Afghanistan is much less significant and visible than in the years leading up to 9/11, experts and security officials say, when up to 30,000 militants and fighters were in the country.

Still, United Nations experts estimate that 15,000 to 20,000 militants are scattered among about 20 groups in Afghanistan. Russia says they could number up to 23,000.

Al-Qaeda has only a few dozen members, according to estimates from the United Nations and security experts, but some of them live freely in Kabul. The Afghan authorities have issued national identity cards to the leadership of al-Qaeda’s South Asian branch, according to the United Nations’ group of experts monitoring terrorist networks.

Thousands of Islamic State group militants also roam the rugged borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Most numerous are the thousands of militants from Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, known as the Pakistani Taliban, or TTP, who navigate the porous border to stage attacks on Pakistani security forces. Security experts and officials attribute a sharp increase in attacks on Pakistan to the permissive environment provided by the Afghan Taliban since 2021.

Though in far lower numbers than in the 1990s, foreign fighters have also recently traveled to Afghanistan from Syria and Somalia.

The Taliban in Afghanistan deny backing the Pakistani Taliban but privately say that they could not rein in the group even if they wanted to.

Pakistan has been a close ally of the United States under President Donald Trump, and the United States has accused the Taliban of breaking their counterterrorism promises. Even China, long a staunch supporter of pragmatic engagement with the Taliban, has urged the group to “resolutely eliminate all terrorist forces.” The European Union wants it “to do more to convince the world that Afghanistan is not a potential threat.”

Intelligence diplomacy

The continued presence of thousands of militants is one of the main reasons for the Taliban’s continued isolation from the rest of the world. Most security analysts believe that they pose a threat mainly to the region, not the West, but al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group still promote a global ideology.

The Taliban claim they work closely with foreign intelligence services to fend off the Islamic State’s group’s Afghanistan affiliate. A senior Afghan intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss national security matters, called this “intelligence diplomacy.”

The two groups are enemies because the affiliate adheres to an extremist jihadi ideology that views the Taliban as apostates for accommodating religious minorities and seeking international engagement. The affiliate claimed responsibility for the attack near the Kabul airport during the U.S. withdrawal in August 2021 that killed 13 U.S. troops and more than 170 Afghan civilians. It has repeatedly targeted Shiite communities in Afghanistan and has claimed deadly attacks in Kabul and Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, this year.

The Taliban have deployed special forces teams to infiltrate areas controlled by the Islamic State group, according to Antonio Giustozzi, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London who follows militant groups in the region.

Experts and security officials say the affiliate no longer has the capacity to mount a large-scale assault. They attribute this to the work of the Taliban and Pakistan, as well as a broader loss of momentum by the group.

“Kabul, to its credit, is waging a fierce armed struggle against Islamic State,” Sergei K. Shoigu, Russia’s former defense minister and now the secretary of its Security Council, said this year.

The Taliban’s relationship with al-Qaeda is of another nature.

U.S. counterterrorism officials have in recent years called Afghanistan a “nursing home” for al-Qaeda’s senior members and defined the group’s threat from the country as being at its “lowest point” in decades.

But its influence persists.

Al-Qaeda never abandoned the Taliban during their 20-year insurgency, and the Taliban have not abandoned al-Qaeda in power.

A few dozen Qaeda members remain in Kabul and along the Pakistani border, training the Pakistani Taliban, according to the United Nations’ monitoring group on terrorist networks.

(Bin Laden’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahri, was killed in a U.S. drone strike on his balcony in Kabul in 2022.)

“The exact role of al-Qaeda Afghanistan? It’s very hard to say,” said Colin Smith, the coordinator of the U.N. group, which collects information from more than 40 intelligence agencies for its biannual reports.

In April, al-Qaeda declared support for the Pakistani Taliban and renewed its endorsement of the Taliban government in Kabul, hailing the group as “a modern role model.” By backing the Taliban, al-Qaeda is buying time and space in Afghanistan, Giustozzi said.

Cumbersome allies

The Taliban’s relationship with militant groups keeps alive a long-running debate: Are the Taliban an insurgent group engaged in statecraft; a state-ruling entity that hasn’t shed its insurgent past; or a mix of both?

That uncertainty reflects the balancing act at the heart of the Taliban’s survival. Allowing Afghanistan to serve as a launchpad for international terrorism is not in the Taliban’s interest — as they learned after 9/11. But out of hospitality, ideological zeal and a lack of resources, they have so far been unable, and in part unwilling, to expel them.

The Pakistani Taliban are forcing the Taliban to face the consequences. The two fought side by side during the U.S.-led war, and the Pakistani Taliban now expect a return on investment: support to establish a similar stronghold in Pakistan.

If the Taliban withdraw support to their Pakistani counterparts, they risk seeing more of their disgruntled fighters join the Pakistani Taliban. Most of the Taliban’s rank and file now control checkpoints and patrol cities. The Pakistani Taliban are offering a new jihad, right next door.

“We sacrificed our generation to bring peace,” said Farhad Sangari, the Taliban commander of a special forces unit in Kabul, on a recent evening as he led a traffic patrol. He added, “I miss the memories of jihad and the front line.”

Many experts and security officials also fear that the vast network of religious schools that has expanded across Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover is teaching a violent, expansionist agenda.

“How many hundreds of thousands of men have been exposed to the Taliban ideology glorifying jihad?” said Michael Semple, a longtime Afghanistan expert at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland.

Afghans are now living with a situation they haven’t faced in decades. They are somewhat safe at home, but Afghanistan is once again exporting insecurity.

The return of gunfire

Whatever its exact nature, the relationship between the Taliban and militant groups now threatens to destabilize Afghanistan.

Fed up with relentless attacks from the Pakistani Taliban, the Pakistani military has retaliated with dozens of airstrikes on Afghan security and civilian infrastructure this year, including in Kabul.

A senior Pakistani intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss national security matters, said his country’s leadership had concluded Pakistan’s domestic security would not improve until it “sorted out” the Taliban. Over the past few months, Taliban officials have grown increasingly concerned about the possibility of a Pakistani-backed attempt at regime change in Afghanistan.

Anti-Taliban resistance groups waiting in the wings now see an opportunity. Three groups, led by former members of the U.S.-backed Afghan military, have claimed responsibility for more than 50 attacks on Taliban officials, checkpoints and buildings across Afghanistan since July.

The leader of one of them, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the attacks, described them in an interview as targets of opportunity, aimed at cracking the veneer of security that the Taliban have so far maintained.

The scattered attacks do not yet pose a regime-ending threat, but at least two local officials have been killed by anti-Taliban forces in recent weeks.

They are another reminder that in Afghanistan, war is not yet a distant memory.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Tal, Oren, and Alon Alexander, three prominent brothers convicted of running a decadeslong sex-trafficking scheme in New York earlier this year, have enlisted lawyer Alan Dershowitz in their apparent pursuit of a pardon from President Donald Trump.

They retained him in March 2025, nearly 11 months before their trial began in New York federal court, and since then have paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to financial documents obtained by The New York Times.

Those documents include a copy of a check for $250,000, as well as a wire transfer receipt and an invoice from Dershowitz requesting an additional $250,000.

Dershowitz confirmed to the Times that he was working for the Alexander family, but said he had not yet discussed options for a pardon with them, describing his role as a consultant on “legal, constitutional, and sentencing issues.” According to a letter reviewed by the Times, written by Dershowitz to the mother of the men, his work also includes pursuing options of “executive clemency and judicial reversal.”

He had not discussed their case with President Donald Trump, Dershowitz said, and although he had visited the brothers in prison and held regular conversations with their criminal defense lawyers, he had not yet explored avenues for a pardon with them. The brothers each face a minimum of 15 years and a potential life sentence. Their sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 6.

“My work has been purely on legal issues completely,” Dershowitz said in a phone interview, but added, “I would be happy to provide consultation services on any aspect.” Dershowitz said he took on the case because he knew Shlomi and Orly Alexander, the brothers’ parents. He confirmed that he was working on behalf of all three brothers.

“I saw that they were facing very serious consequences,” he said. “I don’t ever turn down a case based on the government’s allegations.”

Lawyers for the Alexander brothers, in a joint statement, said they were not aware of any efforts to contact the White House on behalf of their clients. “Our sole focus has been on preparing for sentencing,” they wrote.

Dershowitz, 88, a high-profile lawyer, has ties to Trump, having helped to defend him during his first impeachment trial, where he was acquitted, and advising him at times on foreign policy.

In Trump’s first term, Dershowitz was credited with shaping more of the president’s clemency decisions than almost any other advocate. He played a role in at least 12 clemency grants, including two pardons, which wipe away most consequences of convictions, and 10 commutations, which reduce prison sentences.

He was sought after by other clemency seekers looking for an edge in a system in which connections to the president are seen as a way to skip to the front of the line. Lawyers and lobbyists with ties to the president have charged steep rates to people seeking to avoid or shorten prison sentences.

Dershowitz, who once described himself as a “liberal Democrat” but announced this year that he was joining the Republican Party, has also provided advice to others seeking clemency this year. He counseled OneTaste, a wellness company described by critics as a sex cult. The company’s founder and director of sales were convicted of forced labor conspiracy last year, and they are in federal prison in Brooklyn.

It is not clear if Dershowitz — whose decadeslong career has included representing Jeffrey Epstein — has had as much success in helping to secure clemency grants in the second Trump administration.

The brothers — Tal Alexander, 40, and the twins Oren and Alon Alexander, 39, who were raised in Florida — have their own connections in Trump’s orbit. Oren Alexander and Tal Alexander, who had been among the highest-earning real estate brokers in the country before their arrest, represented Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump in their purchase of a $24 million Florida mansion in 2021.

The Alexanders began exploring avenues for seeking pardons before they were found guilty of sex trafficking and assault against both women and girls.

Last year, a person close to the brothers made inquiries with the Tzedek Association, a Jewish group that has been influential in shaping Trump’s clemency grants and criminal justice policies. The Tzedek Association, which was involved in at least one commutation granted this year, worked with Dershowitz on clemency issues during the first Trump administration.

Less than three months after their arrest, the documents show, the Alexander family paid Dershowitz’s retainer of $250,000. The Times reviewed a photograph of a check dated March 5, 2025, made out to Dershowitz and signed by Orly Alexander. The Times also reviewed a receipt from a wire transfer showing a transaction on that same day of $500,000, with a handwritten note scrawled below noting the funds had been wired after selling stocks belonging to Alon Alexander. “Send 250k to Dershowitz,” it noted.

More than a year later, Dershowitz sent a letter to Alexander, the mother, and to Inbal Rosenthal, who is the family’s accountant, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who agreed to speak under condition of anonymity to protect their privacy. He was owed more money, he wrote.

“Between March 1, 2025, and June 11, 2026, I have devoted 142 ¾ hours” on behalf of the Alexander brothers, Dershowitz noted. His work included visiting them personally, meeting with their lawyers and reviewing options for clemency and pardons, he wrote. He noted that his hourly fee had increased to $2,750, but he was billing at his previous rate of $2,500 and was now owed an additional $106,857 on top of the retainer.

“Please wire an additional retainer of $250,000,” he wrote.

WASHINGTON — U.S. airstrikes against Yemen’s Houthi militants from late 2023 to mid-2025 killed 213 civilians, according to a report released Thursday by the Costs of War Project at Brown University.

Most of the casualties — 208 deaths and 341 wounded — occurred during President Donald Trump’s second term as his administration pursued the Iran-backed group.

The Pentagon has not publicly acknowledged civilian deaths in the 2024 attacks but has reported that it killed 153 civilians and wounded 243 in Yemen in 2025.

In October 2023, President Joe Biden ordered retaliatory airstrikes in Yemen after Houthi fighters attacked a Navy destroyer in the Red Sea, and again in January 2024 after Houthi missiles and drones targeted civilian vessels in the region.

The latter series of strikes continued until just weeks before Biden left office.

Trump ordered strikes on Houthi fighters in March 2025 in response to attacks on commercial shipping vessels in the Red Sea launched from Yemen.

Beyond the loss of life, the report said hundreds of Yemenis lost farms, shops, factories, and small businesses in the attacks, leading to increased homelessness and worsening poverty among people who were already desperately poor.

“There’s a myth that an airstrike is going to strike a military target and kill a militant and it’s over,” said Stephanie Savell, an anthropologist and director of the Costs of War Project. “But what this report highlights are the reverberating, indirect, human costs of war. The report looks precisely at civilian infrastructure that’s targeted, not military infrastructure or outposts.”

Two U.S. attacks were particularly devastating, according to the researchers.

On April 17, 2025, the researchers said, U.S. forces killed 80 civilians in an attack on a port facility in the Houthi-controlled province of Hodeida.

Less than two weeks later, a U.S. attack on three warehouses used to detain African migrants killed 68 civilians.

Most of the workers killed at the port were the main breadwinners for their families, who have since slid deeper into poverty and hunger, according to Savell.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Costs of War Project is a collective of scholars who research the consequences of U.S. wars launched after the terrorist attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. The project published the report with Mwatana for Human Rights, which did research inside Yemen and coproduced the report.

Investigators collected evidence by conducting interviews, analyzing weapon remnants and collecting documents including death certificates.

While the Pentagon has carried out many airstrikes in Yemen targeting al-Qaida fighters since the Sept. 11 attacks, the most recent U.S. strikes in the country have targeted the Houthis, who are part of the so-called Axis of Resistance led by Iran, along with the armed groups Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

According to the report, the Pentagon launched 930 airstrikes in Yemen from Dec. 18, 2023, to January 2025.

Then in March 2025, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth launched Operation Rough Rider against the Houthis. By the end of April, the cost of Hegseth’s campaign was more than $1 billion.

Trump, frustrated with the lack of progress, halted the operation on May 5.

Brian Finucane, a former State Department attorney who advised on the law of war, said, “There are more significant civilian casualty incidents over the Rough Rider campaign than all the previous attacks during the Biden administration.”

He added that the Trump administration “launched two to three times the number of strikes Biden did.”

“Trump was also willing to bomb targets in more densely populated areas than Biden was,” he said. “Additionally, the migrant detention facility that was bombed in April 2025 had routinely been visited by officials from the Red Cross and should have been understood by Central Command as off-limits for attack.”

A Defense Department report on military operations for 2025 acknowledged the civilian death toll from the attacks on the port and the migrant detention facility, along with a strike in Sanaa, the capital, on April 6 that killed five civilians and wounded 25.

Condolence payments to survivors and the families of those who were killed, the report noted, were “determined to not be appropriate” in all three cases.

Just days after Hegseth took office in January 2025, the Army announced that it planned to close an office dedicated to reducing and mitigating civilian harm during combat operations. The office was reduced in March of that year from roughly 200 people to 11. At the time, Hegseth’s office declined to answer questions about the reductions.