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Does Europe face a resurging terrorist threat after the Moscow attack?
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics from Stockholm.
Is the terrorist threat to Europe back after what happened in Moscow?Well, the bad news is, yes, it's there. There's no question about it. It's still coming out. Central Asia, Afghanistan. We have a very disturbing situation in part of Africa with ISIS gaining ground in different ways, so not directly threatening Europe so far. And we should not forget that we have a situation in the Middle East with Gaza and all of the emotions that that is leading to, that is bound to be a recruitment possibility for these particular groups. The good news, if there is any, is of course that evidently the Americans were able to pick up advance warning of this particular terrorist attack. And that shows that we have intelligence capabilities combined with different countries that could give us somewhat more security than perhaps we had in the past. The bad news in this particular situation is, of course, the Russian authorities didn't listen and very many innocent Russians had to pay a very heavy price for that.
We have to learn all of these particular lessons as we move ahead.
Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting to discuss the attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue, outside Moscow, Russia, March 25, 2024.
Why did ISIS-K attack Russia?
Islamic State-Khorasan Province, an associate of the Islamic State group based in Central Asia, claimed responsibility for the attack that left 137 dead in a Moscow nightclub on Friday. Try as he might to baselessly cast Ukraine as the responsible party, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reign has seen him plunge deep into the politics of Islamic extremism.
Moscow has a long history of animosity with the Muslims who make up about 10% of the Russian population, dating back to imperial expansion into the Caucasus and Central Asia in the 19th century.
Putin specifically earned the enmity of jihadists during the Second Chechen War (1999-2009), where he oversaw an infamously brutal crackdown on Islamic extremists fighting for the majority-Muslim state’s independence. He also deployed the Russian Air Force and mercenaries from the Wagner Group to support the Assad regime in Syria in 2015, where they fought the ISIS caliphate. Colin Clarke of the Soufan Center told the AP that Russia and Putin have been the target of ISIS-K propaganda for two years.
However, Russian was also the second most-spoken language among ISIS fighters after Arabic, as Moscow gave tacit approval for its citizens to leave the country and join the group. If the country’s disgruntled extremists are all off fighting in Syria and Iraq, the theory went, they can’t attack targets in Russia.
Those chickens may have come home to roost now. And with the Paris Olympics just months away, we’re watching what steps European leaders take to reduce their own vulnerability to terrorism in the coming weeks.
Putin using Moscow attack as excuse to intensify war on Ukraine
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
A Quick Take to kick off your week. Lots we could be talking about. But I want to go to Russia, where we have had a major terrorist attack with over 130 Russian citizens gunned down, killed by terrorists.
The United States has warned the Russians both publicly so that American citizens would know about the concern, but also with actionable intelligence privately over the past couple of weeks that ISIS was planning an attack on an area with major crowds in Moscow. Putin publicly dismissing that, kind of wish he hadn't, but that we are where we are. And Putin has now spoken to the nation. There have been a number of gunmen that have been rounded up and arrested four, that we know of, Tajik citizens and Putin did not mention that ISIS has taken credit for this terrorist attack, nor that they then released videos of some of the attackers as they were engaging in terrorism inside the rock concert venue.
Instead, he spoke implausibly about links to Ukraine that don't actually exist. Why would ISIS-K do this? I mean, the main reason is because one of their two home bases, Syria and Iraq, in Syria, destroyed by Bashar al-Assad with the direct help from Putin and the Russian military. Nobody else doing that with Assad on the ground. And there have been many terrorist attempts against Russians as a consequence in that regard, but none with spectacular success for them like we've just witnessed.
Why wouldn't Ukraine be responsible? Well, first of all, because they haven't actually been targeting civilians at all. In fact, the one time that they engaged in terrorism and it was terrorism was an attempt to kill an individual, high level Russian extremist, but who was not a political figure. He had been informally an inspiration to the Kremlin and been calling for pogroms against Ukraine, which he said shouldn't exist as a nation. And they didn't get him. Instead, they got his daughter and the United States and other NATO allies were quite angry about the fact that Ukrainians were engaged in that. But aside from that, it's been attacks on critical infrastructure. That's another thing. And certainly, if you want to talk about the Nord Stream pipeline, highly unlikely the Russians would have blown up their pipeline. Much more likely the Ukrainians either by themselves with support would have been responsible for that. The investigations have been inconclusive. That strikes me as not enormously plausible.
Also, Ukraine has been hitting a lot of refineries, Russian refineries, and that's a pretty big deal. About 5% of Russian exports are now offline. Oil exports. That could go up a lot. It could be more than half easily in coming weeks to months of over 3 million barrels a day that the Russians export. If Ukraine starts hitting Black Sea facilities, which they're certainly capable of doing. So global economic impact of this war continues to be very significant. Ability and willingness of the Ukrainians to hit targets inside Russia as well as occupied Crimea, Ukrainian territory, but the Russians annexed it back in 2014 illegally, all of that is certainly par for the course. But the idea that the Ukrainians would be involved in large scale terrorism or support it is not only implausible on the basis of the evidence, but also implausible in terms of what they've been doing historically. But of course, that doesn't matter to Putin, who now intends to use this to drive more military efforts against Ukraine, more civilian casualties.
And that's what we saw in the initial 48 hours after the attack. Unprecedented levels of missiles being sent against the capital, Kyiv, with lots of civilian targets as well as west Ukraine, Lviv in particular. We are seeing that Putin is indifferent to civilian deaths, those of the Ukrainians and, of course, those of his own people. And we probably do now see a much more mobilization from Russia, especially now that the election, the so-called election, is over and more Russian weapons that are going to be used against the Ukrainian people.
The most concerning piece of all of this, I mean, leaving aside the fact that Russia now has a second front they need to fight on, they have, you know, a concern with radical Islamic terrorism that has grown in terms of the capabilities and whether or not Putin says he's going to fight it, he's going to need to fight it. And that's going to take away scarce resources for him and it's going to put more Russian civilians at risk. But the bigger concern, the global concern, of course, is the potential for this war to expand. And there are a couple of incidents that should raise those warning bells. First, the fact that just over this weekend, of all of the missiles that were launched by Russia against Ukraine, one went through Polish airspace for less than a minute, something like 40 seconds, but nonetheless, a Russian missile that actually went through the airspace of a NATO ally. Clearly wasn't targeting that NATO ally.
But Polish and other NATO allied aircraft scrambled. And that is not something we have seen so far since the war started a couple of years ago. Also, the fact that there were a missile explosion targeting Odessa just a couple of weeks ago when President Zelensky was there, in addition to Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. And it was literally only a few hundred yards away that this missile exploded while those two men, those two leaders were on the ground and exposed very clearly. I don't believe that Mitsotakis was targeted, but the fact that he could have been hit as an NATO leader would have also put us in unprecedented danger in terms of the geopolitical order.
Certainly since anything we'd seen since 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis. What's behind that? Well, I mean, I think the most likely thing behind is that Putin doesn't have complete and operational control over everything that's going on on the ground. His military is badly trained and organized. And this was probably a mistake. Woops. But, you know, the fact is that when you have lots of people go into Ukraine and borders, look, you know, they look very defined on a map, but they're very porous in real life. And the potential for mistakes to lead to extraordinary escalation, pretty high. And certainly the willingness to allow for those mistakes to be made is higher than you would like it to be. The checks and balances there don't seem to be all that concerning for the Kremlin or for Vladimir Putin. Of course, a worse explanation would be that Putin actually is prepared to take those risks to brush NATO back. And that, of course, would lead to much more likelihood that we would have escalation that would bring a NATO ally into the war, something that clearly nobody out there wants to see.
But it's worth talking about in the context of all of this, it's much more likely the Ukrainians are now going to get their 60 billion of support. That would be the largest piece of military support so far from the United States, approved likely in mid to late April. They're seeing more ammunition, more economic, more military support from the Europeans, even though the lion share of the military support is from the US and the war continues to be dangerous, continues to be unstable and continues to be no end in sight.
So that's where we are after some very unfortunate headlines and events over the last couple of days. And I'll talk to you all real soon.
- Russia is winning? Winning what? ›
- Putin "wins" Russia election, but at what cost? ›
- Ukraine drone attacks on Moscow imply they don't fear Russian response ›
- Moscow terror attack: What happens next? ›
- US-Israel rift over UN resolution: more drama than long-term impact - GZERO Media ›
- Does Europe face a resurging terrorist threat after the Moscow attack? - GZERO Media ›
Geopolitical fallout over US exit from Afghanistan less than feared
When the US completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan on Aug. 30, 2021, it put an end to a 20-year conflict that had claimed tens of thousands of lives.
But the messy scenes of departure — including a suicide bombing that killed 13 American troops and 170 others — heightened fears that it would allow Afghanistan to become a haven once again for international terrorists and undermine US security partnerships with other countries.
On the first anniversary of the pullout, we asked Eurasia Group senior analyst Ali Wyne what the consequences have been for Afghanistan and the rest of the world.
Have the Taliban shown themselves able to govern and bring stability?
Many Afghans welcomed the end of the 20-year war between the US and the Taliban and the relative stability that followed. But new challenges have arisen over the past year, for it is much easier to rebel than to govern.
The Taliban had a simple raison d’être for two decades: to expel US-led forces from Afghanistan. Now, however, it is tasked with securing diplomatic recognition, cultivating unofficial diplomatic ties with wary governments, and unlocking billions in central bank reserves, to name but a few objectives. It must also contain ISIS-K, the Islamic State’s Afghanistan-based branch, which bitterly opposes the Taliban. Many Afghans who possess the kind of bureaucratic know-how that will be essential to managing these challenges have either fled or been marginalized during the past year.
There are also divisions within the Taliban, as there are in any other government. Some officials fear, for example, that the adoption of draconian policies on education for girls and workforce participation for women will make it harder for Afghanistan to secure the foreign aid that it urgently needs. For now, though, Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and other ideological hardliners within the organization have the upper hand.
Can economic hardship and the rollback in human rights undermine stability?
With the Taliban’s resumption of power, Afghanistan experienced an abrupt cutoff of over $8 billion in annual international aid, equivalent to about 40% of GDP. Exacerbating that shock is an ongoing drought as well as economic headwinds resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The humanitarian situation is dire, with the UN World Food Program estimating that roughly half of the Afghan population is experiencing food insecurity and that a staggering 95% do not have enough to eat. Severe malnutrition, in turn, has increased Afghans’ susceptibility to many diseases and strained an already overwhelmed healthcare system. Many humanitarian and human rights organizations are accordingly urging a relaxation of international sanctions on the Taliban.
Meanwhile, the Taliban’s restrictions on women who seek to participate in the workforce will not only compound Afghanistan’s short-term economic difficulties; they will also limit the country’s medium- to long-run growth potential. One watchpoint worth monitoring is whether ISIS-K attempts to boost its ranks with Afghans who are disillusioned by Taliban rule.
Does the US strike against Ayman al-Zawahiri signal Afghanistan is again becoming a haven for international terrorists?
That the Taliban was harboring al-Qaida’s leader belies its pledge to prevent Afghanistan from reemerging as a safe haven for terrorism. A UN report published shortly before the strike warned that the two organizations have a “close relationship” and concluded that al-Qaida has “increased freedom of action” in Afghanistan under Taliban rule.
US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl testified late last year that ISIS-K might be able to attack the US homeland within six to 12 months and that al-Qaida might be able to do so within one to two years. Confronting a grinding Russia-Ukraine war as well as escalating tensions in the Taiwan Strait, the US has a strong incentive to ensure that they do not develop this capability.
Does the strike’s success suggest the US can contain the terrorism risk without a presence in the country?
The US’s ability to gather intelligence and conduct remote military operations has improved significantly over the past two decades. Even as the strike highlights the continued Taliban-al-Qaida nexus, it spotlights this ability as well. Barring another large-scale terrorist attack on the US that is conclusively attributed to organizations operating inside Afghanistan, though, it is highly unlikely that the US would deploy even a small contingent of troops to the country. The real question, then, is not whether the US can contain the terrorism risk in Afghanistan without boots on the ground, but how best it can contain that risk without them.
Has the US withdrawal affected perceptions about its reliability as a security partner?
The impact appears to have been smaller than many observers had feared at the time of the US withdrawal. The Biden administration has mobilized the West against Russian aggression, and both NATO and the EU are newly invigorated; the former is poised to admit two new members, Finland and Sweden, and the latter has granted membership candidate status to Moldova and Ukraine. Similarly, in managing a resurgent China, the US has successfully bolstered existing groupings such as the Quad and launched new partnerships and initiatives (for example, Partners in the Blue Pacific and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework).
Even if one believes that the US withdrawal undercut perceptions of US reliability, it is worth remembering that when the US was bogged down in Afghanistan, many of the US’s European and Asian friends questioned whether it was able to engage with them consistently on issues that were of more pressing concern to them than counterterrorism.
The US’s withdrawal affirms not only that military power can only go so far in achieving political outcomes, but also that narrow missions can easily morph into nebulous undertakings. America’s NATO allies criticized it for not consulting with them more closely as it prepared to depart, and some observers feared that the decision would inflict permanent damage on perceptions of US reliability. One year on, though, that anxiety appears overstated.
The Graphic Truth: Terror outfits based in Afghanistan
Even though the Taliban “control” Afghanistan, several militant groups still operate in the war-torn country. That's underscored by the recent killing of al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri in downtown Kabul, although not all outfits present in Afghanistan are affiliated with the Taliban. We list some of the major militant organizations working out of the country, with regional and global ambitions.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan meets with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Lviv, Ukraine.
What We're Watching: Erdogan's diplomacy, carnage at Kabul mosque, US-Taiwan trade talks
Erdogan is everywhere
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been very busy this week. On Thursday, he flew to Lviv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and UN Secretary-General António Guterres, the Turkish president’s first visit to Ukraine since Russia’s war began six months ago. Erdogan, who has tried to position himself as an elder statesman and mediator between Kyiv and Moscow, vowed to help rebuild Ukrainian infrastructure just weeks after brokering a deal with Russia to resume Ukrainian grain exports from Black Sea ports amid a global food crisis. The trio also discussed efforts to secure a contested nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. This comes a week after Erdogan held a face-to-face with Vladimir Putin in Sochi, Russia, where they pledged to boost energy cooperation. What’s more, Erdogan’s Ukraine trip came just one day after Ankara announced it was restoring full diplomatic ties with Israel. Indeed, Erdogan is looking to get wins wherever he can as he tries to divert attention from Ankara’s deepening economic woes. In a move that made many economists shudder, Turkey’s central bank on Thursday further slashed interest rates to 13% despite the fact that inflation has topped a whopping 80%. Loosening monetary policy to boost growth has long been Erdogan’s shtick, but as a cost of living crisis continues to hurt Turks, his ruling party is falling in the polls less than a year out from elections.
Worshippers killed in Kabul
At least 21 Afghans were killed, and scores more injured, in a blast on Wednesday night at a mosque in Kabul while worshippers were engaged in evening prayers. Though no group has taken responsibility for the carnage, it is thought to be the work of ISIS-K, an offshoot of the broader Islamic State movement that expanded to Central Asia in 2015 and was responsible for a deadly attack on American troops amid the US withdrawal from Afghanistan last summer. Over the past year, ISIS-K has been intent on antagonizing the Taliban, which it says insufficiently enforces Sharia law (the two groups have also clashed over territory in the past). This attack also comes weeks after the Taliban labeled ISIS-K “a false sect,” banning Afghans from interacting with the group. Some analysts say that Afghanistan has recorded fewer violent incidents over the past year, in part because US forces are no longer targeting Taliban strongholds. But it's unlikely that many Afghans caught in the crossfires of this deadly battle for influence — in addition to a growing humanitarian crisis — feel the same way.
US-Taiwan trade talks
The US and Taiwan will hold formal trade talks in the fall, Washington announced two weeks after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's uber-controversial trip to the self-governing island sparked a furious response from China. Details are vague, but so far the discussions will focus on boosting digital and agriculture trade, anti-corruption standards, and a range of other issues. Taiwan sold almost $66 billion worth of goods in 2021 to the US, which is Taipei’s second-biggest market after China. But the island is far more dependent on trade with the mainland, which along with Hong Kong accounts for more than 40% of Taiwanese exports. The US, for its part, is keen to deepen economic ties with Taiwan as it tries to expand its influence in the Asia Pacific. Additionally, Washington is very hungry for one thing that Taiwan makes a lot of: semiconductors. Although the CHIPS Act recently signed into law by President Joe Biden aims to boost domestic manufacturing of the tech, the US will still need lots of Taiwanese-made semiconductors in the near term. China, for its part, blasted the talks, warning the US not to undermine Beijing’s “core interests.” While the US maintains robust ties with Taiwan, it does not formally recognize its independence from the mainland.
A fighter is seen at the Taliban flag-raising ceremony in Kabul.
The Taliban’s one-year report card in Afghanistan
A year ago, the Taliban won their war in Afghanistan. On Aug. 15, 2021, as they entered Kabul in a lightning advance that shocked the world, images of a botched US exit permanently scarred America’s legacy in its longest war — a mission US commanders now admit they lost track of years ago.
But where does Afghanistan stand a year after the Taliban took over?
That’s reflected in how the Taliban are doing. Contrary to the hopes of optimists, no “Taliban 2.0” has emerged. The regime hasn’t really reformed, and is as hardline as it was when it ruled the country from 1996 to 2001.
There is no constitution. Religious policing is back with a vengeance. The media is muzzled. And the recent US killing of al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a Kabul enclave that houses senior members of the Haqqani Network — whose boss is the current interior minister — has confirmed the skeptics who thought the Taliban could or would never disassociate from international terrorism.
Financially, things are as bad as they can get. The economy has essentially collapsed under the weight of international isolation, sanctions, and aid cuts. It was so hooked to the war that six months after the American withdrawal, GDP fell by a third. Now, Afghanistan is near universal poverty and starvation.
Women and girls have had it the worst. Millions of them have found themselves out of school, out of jobs, and out of public life altogether. The Taliban’s supreme leader vetoed a government edict to let them back to class in March, a political development that underscores serious schisms within the regime’s conservative and moderate — by Taliban standards — elements.
On Sunday, on the eve of the re-establishment of the “Islamic Emirate,” a few brave women marched in a rare protest in Kabul. They were beaten and scared off by automatic gunfire.
On the one hand, some stability has come. The Taliban takeover did end the war. Overall, violence has abated across Afghanistan, opening up vast swaths of the hinterland to some development and jobs. Moreover, the Taliban seem to have improved upon the taxation system of the previous regime, and even controlled corruption.
On the other, the Taliban are now fighting their own insurgencies. There’s been a recent uptick in clashes between the Taliban and ISIS-K, the even more hardcore Islamists who own the Islamic State franchise in the region. The Taliban’s other internal enemy is the ragtag but determined group of nationalists that form the National Resistance Front. The fighting continues to add to the hundreds of thousands of Afghans who have been internally displaced or been forced to flee their homeland.
“The Taliban have managed to keep major armed challengers to their rule at bay until now, but at the same time have struggled to consolidate politically,” says Asfandyar Mir, a senior expert at the US Institute of Peace in Washington, DC. “There are internal political problems, tenuous ties with the international community, and a range of security threats to the region festering in the country.”
One year into their rule, Mir adds, the Taliban are drifting, “and their troubles continue to mount.”
The regime continues to disappoint not just Afghans, but even its few friends abroad. The fact that no country, not even the Taliban’s most erstwhile ally, has recognized their government underscores this skepticism.
Pakistan, which for the last two decades has burnt many bridges with Washington to protect Taliban leadership and provide safe haven to its fighters, is now being attacked regularly by insurgents associated with Kabul.
Other nations willing to talk to the group, like Uzbekistan and China, have also been left in the lurch. They were promised safer borders, but militants who threaten them and other countries continue to move, organize, arm, and recruit across Afghanistan.
“The Taliban have disappointed different people for different reasons,” says Torek Farhadi, a former Afghan finance ministry and World Bank official based in Geneva.
“They have disappointed all Afghans by preventing their teenage daughters from going to school. They have disappointed the Pakistanis because no pressure was exerted on the Pakistani Taliban. They’ve disappointed the Iranians because they have not been able to hit harder on ISIS and attacks on our Shiite community continue. They’ve disappointed the West because of their human rights record, and they’ve disappointed Islamic countries by shaming the image of Islam.”
So, is there any hope for things to get better? Not much, at least in the near term.
Though they control more of Afghanistan now than the first time they were in charge, it’s unclear whether the Taliban’s inability to deliver locally and internationally is a problem of capacity, will or both. Regardless, it’s left little space for Taliban optimists both home and abroad.
“The Taliban remain deeply wedded to their jihadi precepts, which gives a certain clerical class and the fighters within the movement immense power over decision-making,” assesses Mir. “That makes it exceedingly difficult for [them] to take steps which can help consolidate their rule, work with the international community, and prioritize state-building.”
Still, the regime continues to seek legitimacy. The Taliban’s younger leadership is making moves: putting out feelers for the West and trying to engage democratic partners, like India. Meanwhile, they’re also negotiating to gain access to the billions of dollars in former Afghan government funds that were frozen by Washington last year.
But getting that cash or international recognition will remain unlikely as long as the Taliban continue to adhere to suppress women, attack minorities, and aid terrorism. Unfortunately, it’ll be a tall order for the Taliban to make progress. After all, the group belongs to two limiting and regressive schools: tribalism and jihad.
Change isn’t rewarded, but bellicosity is.
In 1992, supporters of abortion rights mingle with abortion opponents at a State House rally marking the 19th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
What We're Watching: Roe in trouble, Russia Victory Day, ISIS-K terrorizes Afghanistan, Macron vs the left
US Supreme Court reportedly set to overturn Roe vs. Wade
The US Supreme Court is set to overturn the landmark abortion rights decision of Roe vs. Wade, according to a leaked draft of the decision reported by Politico late Monday. The draft, written by Justice Samuel Alito, explains the court’s apparent plan to reverse the 1973 ruling, noting that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start” and that it’s time to “return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.” If true, this means the court is siding with Mississippi in its push to ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. While SCOTUS drafts do not always reflect final decisions, Eurasia Group’s lead US political analyst Jon Lieber believes the draft is a sneak peek of what’s to come. “Court watchers seem to think the document is a legitimate draft, and given the makeup of the court it sure reads like the majority decision I expected to see,” Lieber says. “So I think this is both real and reflects the reality that Roe vs. Wade will be overturned this year."
Victory Day in Russia
How will Vladimir Putin use this year’s May 9 Victory Day celebration, which commemorates the Soviet triumph over Hitler’s legions in 1945? He can’t announce the capture of Kyiv and the installation of a Kremlin-compliant president there. The Russians may eventually take another run at Kyiv, but not next week. Putin might announce the “liberation” of the Donbas and the territories that connect it to Russian forces in Crimea. But there’s also growing speculation that Russia’s president may use the May 9 event to make an announcement that’s far more dangerous, both for the West and for Putin personally. Britain’s defense minister has speculated that Putin might finally set aside his “special military operation” to declare “war” on Ukraine – and that his next steps could include the large-scale conscription of young Russian men into the military. That would instantly up the political stakes for Putin inside Russia. He might even declare a kind of “war” on NATO. That need not mean World War III, but it would be a statement of Russia’s intent to intensify economic pressure, military provocations, and cyber harassment of Ukraine’s Western backers.
ISIS terrorizes Afghanistan
Things in Afghanistan are going from bad to worse. Over the past few weeks, more than 100 Afghans have been killed in terror attacks, most of which have been claimed by ISIS-K, an offshoot of the Islamic State movement that expanded to Central Asia in 2015. While mainly Shiite areas have been targeted, last week the group also bombed a Sufi mosque, so the widespread attacks no longer appear to have sectarian motives. So what is ISIS’s game plan? It clearly wants to antagonize the Taliban, which it says insufficiently enforces Shariah law. The two groups have clashed over territory in the past, and several disillusioned Taliban members have defected to ISIS-K. While the Taliban is striving to gain international legitimacy and unlock frozen foreign funds, ISIS-K is sewing chaos and undermining the ruling regime’s authority. The Taliban, which vowed to ensure Afghanistan's national security upon assuming power last summer, recently arrested one senior ISIS leader. Still, blood continues to flow, with one Afghan academic warning of “a spring and summer of destruction.”
Macron’s problem on the left
In a big shakeup to French politics, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who heads the far-left France Insoumise Party and came a close third in the first round of the presidential election, has struck a deal to join forces with the Green Party. The bloc said it wouldn’t push for France to leave the EU, but it was “ready to disobey European rules.” This is bad news for President Emmanuel Macron, who needs his La République en Marche Party to gain a majority in legislative elections in June in order to pursue his pro-business, pro-EU policy agenda. Mélenchon is currently also courting the Socialist and Communist parties to join his anti-Macron coalition, hoping that if he gains enough votes this summer, Macron will be forced to tap a far-left PM to steer the legislative agenda. Still, Eurasia Group analyst Mujtaba Rahman says this is unlikely given that centrists and right-of-center voters will now be more energized to come out and vote to quash the far-left’s potential rising influence.