Once a powerful global terror brand, al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent(AQIS) has been reduced to survival tactics, clinging to theTehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to maintain relevance. The United Nations’Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team has warned that AQIS,weakened by leadership losses and sustained counterterrorism operations,has increasingly handed over fighters, vehicles, and even splinter factionsto the Pakistani Taliban in recent years. Experts describe this as anunprecedented merger that turns AQIS into little more than an auxiliary armof the TTP rather than an independent jihadist force (The Diplomatlink;Times of Indialink).
The United Nations has also noted that this convergence has enhanced theoperational reach of the TTP, which is now considered Afghanistan’s largestmilitant group. By pooling resources with AQIS, TTP has expanded itsability to recruit fighters, share training camps, and launch high-profileattacks in Pakistan and beyond. Analysts caution that such coordination,tolerated by the Taliban regime in Kabul, creates conditions for terrorismto project into neighboring states and destabilize the wider region (EconomicTimeslink).
India’s external intelligence RAW is financing and supporting TTP factionsto destabilize Pakistan, particularly in tribal districts and Balochistan.Pakistani officials claim that Indian consulates in Afghan border citieslike Jalalabad and Kandahar were previously used as staging grounds forsuch operations.
The decline of AQIS as an autonomous movement has been stark. The killingof Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul, the arrest of senior operatives such asAminul Haq, and the elimination of its founding emir Asim Umar left theorganization decapitated and fractured. Once a group that aspired toorchestrate global jihad, AQIS is now surviving only by embedding itselfwithin the Taliban’s Pakistani branch. Analysts conclude that what was oncea feared international terror network is today a shadow of its formerself—dependent on TTP’s resources and territory to avoid extinction (NDTVlink;DNIlink).
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The AQIS–TTP merger thus highlights two converging realities: the fadingrelevance of al-Qaeda’s South Asian wing, and the rising influence of thePakistani Taliban as a central player in regional militancy. Coupled withIndian involvement, the situation underscores how terrorism in South Asiaremains deeply intertwined with regional rivalries, intelligence contests,and shifting alliances.