25 Years After 9/11, Al-Qaeda Remains Active in Afghanistan as Global Network Shifts, Report Says

Afghanistan, Sept. 9 -- Twenty-five years after the September 11, 2001 attacks, al-Qaeda continues to operate inside Afghanistan, but global jihadism has evolved into a decentralized network spread across Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, according to a new assessment by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED).

The report says Afghanistan is no longer the undisputed center of global jihadist activity, even though al-Qaeda still enjoys what it describes as a permissive operating environment under the Taliban. Instead, the group's affiliates and offshoots have expanded across multiple conflict zones, with the Sahel region of Africa and Somalia emerging as the most active hubs of al-Qaeda-linked violence.

Pearl Pandya,...