Afghanistan has again become a “terrorist haven” harboring Al Qaeda followers after former President Joe Biden allowed American weapons and funds to fall into the Taliban’s hands in 2021, a new report finds.
The Taliban regime made $3.4 billion in revenue since March 2024 and March 2025 and is allowing Al Qaeda “affiliates” to arm themselves, the U.S. government’s Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) reported April 30. Decades after the U.S. went to war with the two groups following 9/11, evidence shows that Afghanistan poses a greater danger to Americans than before the attacks, a national security analyst told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“The threat of terrorism emanating from Afghanistan is far greater today than pre-9/11, as the Taliban controls all of Afghanistan, has the resources of the state, and has allowed Al Qaeda to establish significant terror infrastructure, including training camps, safe house and religious schools,” said Bill Roggio, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Al Qaeda has the time, space and resources to recruit and train the next generation of terrorists and plot their next attack.”
The SIGAR document in part referenced a February United Nations (U.N.) report which found that Al Qaeda followers had “access to weapons” taken from the former Afghan government. The supplies had been “transferred to them by the de facto authorities/Taliban or purchased from the black market,” it said.
NEW: Today, SIGAR released its 67th Quarterly Report to Congress, examining the U.S. reconstruction effort in #Afghanistan. Read here: https://t.co/xQmxRsHSnt
— SIGAR (@SIGARHQ) May 1, 2025
The Biden administration left an estimated $7.12 billion worth of American military equipment with U.S.-backed Afghan forces when it withdrew American troops from the region. Media reports have shown that some of the weapons fell into the hands of terrorist groups based in other countries as well.
“Terrorist groups continued to use Afghan soil to train and plan attacks and a ‘small but steady’ flow of foreign terrorists continued to travel to Afghanistan and join one of over two dozen terror groups based there,’” SIGAR wrote, citing the U.N. SIGAR also noted that the Taliban treats Al Qaeda-adjacent radicals as “refugees” and gives them identity documents that could allow them to enter nearby countries.
Some of the Taliban’s revenue has come from U.S. taxpayer funds meant for foreign aid programs. A previous SIGAR report found that aid groups gave more than $10 million in American funds to the terrorist regime by May 2024 through taxes and other fees. Just one State Department office effectively paid the Taliban $1.8 million between September 2021 and December 2024, according to another inspector general.
The Taliban also “likely gained access to” another batch of “approximately $57.6 million” from the U.S. when it seized the former Afghan government’s finances, SIGAR reported in 2022.
The Trump administration has sought to put scrutiny on both foreign aid programs and Biden’s military withdrawal from Afghanistan, which led to the deaths of 13 American troops and around 170 Afghans and a swift Taliban takeover after more than 20 years of war. SIGAR’s latest report said the U.S. “terminated all but two assistance programs to Afghanistan” since its last quarterly report.
The Department of Defense (DOD) told the DCNF that “as the President and other senior officials have said, the Afghanistan withdrawal is under review and so we will provide more information as it becomes available.” The DOD said it had no comment about the latest SIGAR warnings “at this time.”
“It is no surprise that SIGAR has described Afghanistan as a terrorist haven as the Taliban themselves are terrorists and were always going to support their terrorist allies, especially Al Qaeda,” Roggio told the DCNF. “The same goes with the Taliban distributing U.S. weapons and gear. The alliance between the two groups has always been strong.”
“While U.S. political leaders have moved on from the war on terror, our enemies have not,” Roggio said.
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