"Osama would be pleased." Afghanistan is once again the center of global jihadism.

"I am here among the best, the brightest jihadists" – said Khalid Sheikh Muhammad one evening to a group of Muslim fighters in Bosnia. "This place is secondary. Of course, there are our Muslim brothers here and you support them. The true enemy is America. In [province] Khost in Afghanistan, there is already the Khalden camp and a new force is emerging there. Move there. You will wander somewhere on the fringes of the world, wasting time and life. And still, secular governments will come. They will allow alcohol, nightlife. No brothel will be closed. Go to Afghanistan. Prepare for this most important war" – he encouraged. It was 1995.

Even then, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad was thinking about using civilian airplanes to carry out an attack in the United States. Earlier, at the beginning of 1995, his nephew Ramzi Yousuf along with accomplices was preparing Operation Bojinka – a plan to blow up eleven American airplanes flying from Asia to the United States, including an assassination attempt on the Pope. It did not come to fruition because the Filipino police discovered an apartment where materials needed to carry out the operation were stored.

In 1996, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad presented Osama bin Laden with his own, modified version of this idea. Bin Laden initially rejected it. At the end of 1998 or the beginning of 1999, he changed his mind and gave KSM permission to prepare the operation. This happened several months after the American missile attack on Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. In December 1999, preparations for the operation began, which two years later would change the face of the world.

From the Bosnia War to Al-Qaeda and September 11

Some fighters from Bosnia had previously fought in Chechnya or Afghanistan. Some were only sixteen years old and had to sneak away from home quietly. Like Aimen Dean, later an MI6 agent and author of the book Nine Lives: My Time as MI6’s Top Spy Inside al-Qaeda. In 1994, he left Saudi Arabia for Bosnia, where he joined Islamic fighters. Later, he went to Afghanistan, and in 1997, he took an oath of allegiance to Osama bin Laden. He called himself at that time Haidarim al-Bahraini, the Lion of Bahrain – he still feels ashamed of this. Aimen Dean is also a pseudonym.

Among Islamic fighters from 40 countries there were also two Saudis, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. They had been friends since childhood. Chosen in Afghanistan by Osama bin Laden as the first of the 19 future hijackers, they arrived in the United States in January 2000.

From Los Angeles airport, they went to San Diego. Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi posing as a student, helped them. He found them an apartment, signed the lease, and helped during the first weeks of their stay. He later claimed that he met them by chance in a restaurant in Culver City. The 9/11 Commission concluded that there was no credible evidence that he knew about the plans or knowingly assisted the terrorist organization. Subsequent FBI investigations and declassified documents shed new light on this story.

Bayoumi was officially a student but did not attend classes. He supported himself with money from companies linked to the Saudi government, including the Ministry of Defense. The FBI established that he received about $90,000 annually, despite not performing any work. After al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi arrived, his salary more than doubled, then returned to the previous level when both left San Diego.

This is not the only detail that draws attention. Materials revealed by the BBC show Bayoumi in the embrace of Anwar al-Awlaki, who several years later became one of the leaders of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. In a published recording, both participate in a paintball game in San Diego with a Saudi official from the Ministry of Islamic Affairs. The FBI had these materials shortly after the attacks but did not fully utilize them in the subsequent investigation.

Khalid and Nawaf rarely left the house. They slept, played, and at night, a limousine would arrive and take them to training. That was the plan – among the hijackers, there would be so-called muscle men who would incapacitate whomever necessary so that others, properly trained, could take control of the airplanes.

Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and the CIA's secret prisons

The mastermind of the entire operation, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, was arrested by Americans in March 2003. He is still held in Guantanamo. After his detention, he was transferred to CIA secret prisons. One of them was located in Poland, in Stare Kiejkuty.

In December 2014, Aleksander Kwaśniewski publicly admitted for the first time that Poland agreed to establish a secret CIA facility on its territory. He spoke of a "relatively safe place," avoiding the word "prison." Khalid Sheikh Muhammad was also transferred to Stare Kiejkuty. According to declassified CIA documents, he was subjected there to so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, including at least 183 waterboarding sessions, a simulated drowning. He was held in a standing position, deprived of sleep, stripped naked. They also used so-called rectal feeding.

In January 2007, Frank Pellegrino, an FBI agent who had been searching for Sheikh Muhammad for years, sat down with him at the same table. This time, there were no shouts, handcuffs, or coercion. They talked for several days. Pellegrino summarized it as: "Believe it or not, he has an incredible sense of humor. Very engaging conversation. And zero remorse, zero guilt."

Just after September 11, I asked Professor Janusz Danecki, an Arabist, whether these nineteen young men – aged 20 to 33 – were really in such a hurry to reach paradise and how to reconcile their decision with the Koranic prohibition of suicide.

"The Muslim paradise is a Bedouin's dream from the seventh century. It is green. There is water. There are rivers flowing with wine. There are houris. Today, all of this can be had for money already in this world. These people have been very skillfully and effectively manipulated. No one told them about suicide, only about martyrdom in defense of Islam. Just before the attack, they were to pray constantly, fast, shave their entire bodies, and prepare for the holy ritual of purification, which in a moment would transfer them to paradise" – explained Prof. Danecki.

However, there is one thing that money cannot buy. According to later tradition regarding the reward for a martyr, he can request a place in paradise for seventy of his closest relatives.

There is no single church, as in Christianity. There is no single Islamic authority that could decide what is the correct interpretation of religion. There are scholars, legal schools, clergy. There are also terrorist groups that create their own interpretations and try to implement them by force. Sometimes with great cruelty.

This is what Boko Haram does. Not only in Nigeria, where it originates, but also in Niger, Mali, and Chad. This is what the Taliban do in Afghanistan. And this is what Al-Qaeda did, which used religious texts and concepts to justify violence.

In Al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, they taught not only shooting or bomb-making. Aimen Dean, who himself underwent such training, described learning about preparing poisons, chemical, and biological weapons. They also experimented on animals. According to Dean, killing rabbits gave some participants genuine pleasure.

Ahmad Shah Masud warned against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban

The Taliban took Kabul in 1996. Al-Qaeda established its training camps on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border. Cooperation between the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's organization was intensifying.

Two days before the attack on the World Trade Center, Ahmad Shah Masud, "Lion of Panshir" – leader of the Northern Alliance and the most important opponent of the Taliban in the country – was murdered. He controlled Panshir, one of the last regions of Afghanistan remaining outside their control. Several months earlier, in April 2001, Masud spoke at the European Parliament. He warned against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, spoke of the threat that terrorism from Afghanistan posed to the world. There was applause, expressions of solidarity, and political support.

After the attack, Masud was mentioned in the European Parliament as a man whose warnings the West did not take seriously enough. Nicole Fontaine, then President of the European Parliament, said outright that his death – he was murdered on September 9, 2001 – was part of the same strategy as the attacks in New York and Washington.

Today, his son, Ahmad Masud, founder and leader of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, also tries to draw the world's attention to what is happening in his country. And with sadness, he admits that Afghanistan has become "yesterday's news".

In 2026, 180 Afghan Islamic scholars opposed the Taliban. In a issued fatwa, they declared their rule a tyranny, called Afghans to armed struggle, and stated that overthrowing the Taliban is a religious duty. But the scholars do not have weapons. The Taliban do not lack them.

The only such country

There is no other Muslim country in the world where gender apartheid prevails and where women would be completely eliminated from universities, social, and economic life. Meanwhile, the Taliban, having taken control of the country, seized military equipment worth over $8.5 billion. Neither the National Resistance Front nor any comparable external aid has such resources.

Over 30,000 terrorists from more than twenty countries are currently in Afghanistan. They are training and recruiting en masse. It is there that six of Osama bin Laden's sons are supposed to operate, including his beloved Hamza, whom President Trump declared dead in 2019.

The Taliban's triumph in 2021 undoubtedly boosted other terrorist organizations. When Syrians from HTS asked for help, weapons from the Panshir Valley were sent to them – that is where the Taliban now have their largest arsenal.

Current Syrian President Ahmad Asz-Szara joined Al-Qaeda in 2003. Later, he created his own groups: first Jabhah an-Nusra (2012), linked to Al-Qaeda, and then HTS (2017).

Yemeni Houthi rebels have been cooperating closely with Al-Shabaab (the Mujahideen Youth Movement) for several years. They supply Somali jihadists with weapons, train them, and incorporate them into their ranks – only last week, several Somalis were killed in Yemen. Al-Shabaab controls about one-third of Somali territory. It has its own judiciary, its own tax collection system – or, if you prefer, extortion. And it has money. Guled Ahmed, a Somali analyst and researcher associated with the Middle East Institute in Washington, specializing in the geopolitics of the Horn of Africa and terrorism financing, titled his book Al-Shabaab Mafia Inc. – portraying the organization not only as a terrorist group but also as a kind of mafia and corporation.

Unlikely alliances are forming. Branches and franchises. Sometimes regrouping is necessary, sometimes relocating. The differences are mostly tactical. The most important enemies remain the same: the United States and Israel.

The so-called Islamic State also has not disappeared. According to Global Terrorism Index 2026, in 2025 it was one of the four deadliest terrorist organizations in the world. However, it operated "only" in 15 countries – the year before, in 22. The other three organizations in the top four are Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and Al-Shabaab.

"Osama would be pleased" – summarizes the situation a quarter-century after the attack on the World Trade Center, Professor Bruce Hoffman from Georgetown University.

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