UNITED NATIONS: Cross-border attacks between Pakistan and Afghanistan escalated sharply over the past six months, fueled by a surge of assaults inside Pakistan by the Pakistani Taliban that Afghanistan's Taliban-led government continues to enable despite its public denials, according to a new U.N. report on the Islamic State group and al-Qaida.
The 38th report from the U.N.'s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, dated Aug. 10 and covering mid-December through early June, found that regional tensions in South Asia remained high as the group known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, escalated attacks against Pakistan, provoking military exchanges across the border. The report said Afghanistan's Taliban authorities continued to publicly deny harboring any terrorist groups even as they provided the group support.
TTP restructures, launches spring campaign
The report said TTP announced a revised structure in late December following its annual leadership council, adding new divisions to cover Balochistan and the Kashmir-Gilgit region, along with a unit described as a "TTP Air Force." In March, the group launched a campaign it called "Operation Khyber," calling for increased attacks on Pakistani security forces and civilians. One of the deadliest strikes came in February in the Bajaur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where a car bombing killed 11 security personnel and a child.
Afghanistan's Taliban relocated roughly 2,000 TTP fighters and their families away from the Pakistani border and further into Afghanistan in an apparent effort to rein in the group, the report said, and Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada reportedly warned TTP through back-channel communications to halt attacks on Pakistan or risk losing the Taliban's support.
The report also said al-Qaida's media arm publicly backed both the Taliban and, for the first time, TTP in a statement in April, while a Member State reported that al-Qaida trainers in Afghanistan have trained TTP fighters alongside members of the Baloch Liberation Army.
Islamic State's regional affiliate rebuilds
The Islamic State group's regional affiliate, known as ISIL-Khorasan, remained the greatest threat to Afghanistan's Taliban government and the broader region despite suffering setbacks from counterterrorism operations, the report found. Attacks by the group declined in Afghanistan but increased in Pakistan, and investigators said it was in a rebuilding phase with renewed capability for infrequent but high-profile attacks. The group claimed a Jan. 19 suicide bombing at a restaurant in Kabul that killed 12 people, and a Feb. 6 attack on a Shiite mosque in Islamabad during Friday prayers that killed 32 people and wounded more than 150.
A separate al-Qaida affiliate, al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent, was described in the report as evolving from a fragmented group into a more organized regional network, operating in small, decentralized cells. The group was formally linked to the November 2025 attack on the Red Fort in Delhi and was reported to form the backbone of another militant network responsible for a May bombing near a security post in Bannu, Pakistan, that killed 21 people.
Threat also intensifying in Africa's Sahel
Beyond South Asia, the report found the overall global threat level from the Islamic State group and al-Qaida held roughly steady but intensified sharply in Africa's Sahel region. There, the al-Qaida-linked group Jama'a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin, or JNIM, launched a coordinated offensive in April across Mali, working with the Tuareg-led Front de Liberation de l'Azawad to retake parts of northern Mali, including the town of Kidal, and to strike the garrison town of Kati, where Mali's defense minister was killed in a suicide car bombing. The report said the operation was funded in part by a roughly $50 million ransom the group collected in 2025 for a hostage's release.
That offensive also triggered a violent rivalry between JNIM and a rival Islamic State affiliate, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, in what investigators described as the most intense direct confrontation anywhere between an al-Qaida branch and an Islamic State affiliate.
Islamic State loses a top leader
The Islamic State group suffered a separate setback in May with the death of Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad ibn Ali al-Mainuki, a deputy leader who also ran the group's General Directorate of Provinces. He was killed in a joint U.S.-Nigerian operation in Borno State, Nigeria, alongside other operatives involved in the group's communications and propaganda networks. Investigators said his death could further disrupt the group's ability to coordinate across its global affiliates.
Al-Qaida's central leadership, meanwhile, remains marginalized, the report found. Sayf al-Adl, widely regarded as the group's de facto leader, was believed to be in Iran, but the war there that began in late February may have jeopardized his safety, and investigators said he may try to relocate to Afghanistan.
Monitoring team urges crackdown on crypto financing
The report closed with a set of recommendations, including a call for the U.N. Secretariat to explore creating a dedicated field in the sanctions list for digital currency addresses linked to terrorist financing, and for greater cooperation with the Financial Action Task Force to unmask the true owners of businesses used to launder funds. The monitoring team also asked the Security Council committee's chair to push for a larger word limit on future reports, saying repeated budget-driven cuts have caused "a significant loss of detail" in a report covering a global sanctions regime.
Separately, the report noted that three individuals were added to the U.N. sanctions list during the reporting period while seven were removed, along with the listing for the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, following the Feb. 27 delisting of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. The sanctions list now includes 249 individuals and 88 entities.
The monitoring team's coordinator, Colin Smith, said the report was agreed to by consensus among the team's members and would be discussed further with the Security Council committee.
