Hotbed of militancy.

AS the world confronts financial and political crises, as well as a full-blown war in Ukraine that threatens to expand, a familiar threat lurks in Afghanistan that has the capability to upend regional and global peace.

As highlighted by a recently released UN report, Al Qaeda and the self-styled Islamic State group are operating unhindered in Afghanistan, while the TTP is said to oversee the largest group of foreign terrorists on Afghan soil. Few people have to be reminded of the trail of blood all three of the aforementioned terrorist groups have left across the world, and the international community can only ignore the warning signs at its own peril.

While it is true that transnational militant groups were operating in Afghanistan even as the US/Nato military machine maintained a heavy footprint in that country, after Kabul fell to the Afghan Taliban last year, fears grew that once more Afghanistan would become a hotbed of international terrorism.

Clearly, those concerns were not unfounded.

Editorial: UN report on terrorism

For example, the UN report says Al Qaeda supremo Ayman al Zawahiri is silently, but openly, operating in Afghanistan. Of course, the present Taliban rulers don't need to be reminded that their previous regime also fell because they had hosted the Al Qaeda leadership, which had attracted the wrath of the US following 9/11.

Moreover, after IS was largely routed from the Levant, it found in Afghanistan an atmosphere conducive to conducting its activities. Today, the Afghan set-up of the 'caliphate' is one of its most active chapters, attracting religious militants from across the world.

For Pakistan, it should be a...