More ominously, the UN team also said that al-Qaeda had “established new training camps” in multiple Afghan provinces and had established “safe houses” in major cities such as Kabul. Fitton-Brown, the former coordinator of U.N. sanctions on the Taliban, told Just the News that “the U.S. is still stuck on this idea that the Taliban can be a counterterrorism partner” but that “there is a moral and practical hazard of trying to do counterterrorism work with the Taliban.”

Fitton-Brown, who is now senior advisor to the Counter Extremism Project, added that “if you go to the point of embracing allies of al-Qaeda to fight ISIS-K… it’s like treating a cold with a shot of malaria.”

“... Hans-Jakob Schindler is aware of the theory of Russian agents in Afghanistan. "That is entirely possible, we had corresponding indications," said the director of the NGO Counter Extremism Project (CEP) in an interview with this editorial team. However, this cannot currently be proven, said the terrorism expert. But Russia's aim is to cause social unrest in Germany. Acts of violence shortly before important elections would suit the Russians well, explains Schindler: "However, attacks cannot be timed precisely. For that to happen, Russia would have to intervene directly with the perpetrator in question." If there had been direct Russian intervention, "this should have been noticed during the investigations into the attacks of the last few months."”