Several terror outfits including Al-Shabaab in Somalia and the Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) In Mali have been celebrating as the Taliban returned to Afghanistan. While the Taliban have made a comeback in Afghanistan, the withdrawal of the French military mission has led to more worries.

The French military mission — Operation Barkhane—has been present in the Sahel region of Africa since 2013 with the aim of keeping off the Islamic terror outfits and local militant groups that are linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s (ISIL).

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An article by the Observer Research Foundation noted that these extremist groups worldwide are viewing the Taliban’s rapid sweep to power as validation of their strategy of patience in pursuit of their call for ‘global jihad’.

It also noted that the recent fallout of the Taliban taking over in Afghanistan demonstrates that civil war and armed conflicts cannot be won by a foreign third-party military intervention. That apart, rushed evacuations, rather than better-planned and staggered ones, may in fact be counterproductive in countries that are dependent on external support (like Somalia and Mali).

A recent United Nations report noted that Africa has been hit the most by terror related activities in the first half of 2021.

The UN Security Council has also warned that terror attacks could take place once Covid 19 induced restrictions ease though such brutal instances remained “artificially” suppressed amid the pandemic. Not just that. These attacks may have been already planned in various locations, it said.