No event has shaped the international security paradigm and geopolitics as much as the 9/11 terror attacks in the US. Al Qaeda (AQ) terrorists used passenger planes as “flying” improvised explosive devices (IEDs), crashing two into the World Trade Centre (WTC) in New York, where about 50,000 people worked. They crashed another one into the western wing of the Pentagon, while passengers managed to overpower the terrorists aboard the fourth “flying” IED heading for the US Capitol Building, and force-crashed the plane in a field in southern Pennsylvania. In all, about 3,000 people died, and 6,000 were injured. Over 2,600 American nationals and 400 nationals of 90 other countries were killed in the attacks.

Nineteen Arab terrorists, including 15 Saudi nationals, carried out the attacks ordered by AQ chief Osama bin Laden (OBL), a Saudi national who was operating from his headquarters in Afghanistan as a “guest” of the Taliban 1.0. The US launched a global “War on Terror” (WoT), which began with the occupation of Afghanistan after the removal of the Taliban in December 2001, a worldwide effort to dismantle AQ’s network, and the occupation of Iraq after the removal of Saddam Hussein in March 2003. The WoT has ended, but not the fight against terror, especially in South Asia.


The sheer audacity and destruction of 9/11 woke up the world to the existence, reach, and capability of AQ’s network. The global community, including non-Western powers like China and Russia, aligned their counter-terrorism (CT) objectives with those of the US when the war in Afghanistan began. About 50 countries contributed troops to US and NATO-led military efforts. However, the US war in Iraq, which involved the mobilisation of thousands of US troops from Kuwait into Iraq in March 2003, was supported largely by the British troops.

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Worldwide investigations linked 9/11 and earlier spectacular attacks — including the 1993 attack on the WTC, the 1994 bombing of Philippine Airlines Flight 434, the 1994-95 Bojinka plot, the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the 2000 attack on USS Cole off the coast of Yemen — to the AQ’s global network. This necessitated robust bilateral and multilateral cooperation among nations towards counter-terrorism objectives, political consensus, and on-ground efforts across theatres, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia.

However, cracks began appearing in the political consensus around the WoT, as both Iraq and Afghanistan became theatres of “forever wars” embroiled in the unintended consequences of regime change and inadequate understanding of the dynamic nature of the threat.

In Iraq, in less than 16 months of the “victorious” withdrawal of US troops in December 2011, a local branch of AQ, called Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), morphed into the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The network grabbed territories across Iraq and Syria to set up a Caliphate, which became a magnet for thousands of foreign fighters lured to live under a “puritanical Islamic and comfortable rule” as promised in classical global jihadist propaganda. The Caliphate could be defeated by the US-led coalition of over 90 countries only by March 2019.

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In Afghanistan, the US had to change its strategy to treat terror groups (AQ and allies, including elements of the Taliban) and insurgent groups (the Taliban focused on national issues) differently to end the war. However, even after the killing of Osama Bin Laden on May 2, 2011, in his safe house in Pakistan, the US had to wait more than 10 years to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.

Over 20 years of WoT, the substantial leadership of AQ and ISIS was eliminated. But local, independent groups that pledged allegiance to AQ continue to operate, largely in Yemen, Somalia, and the Sahel. Similarly, local, independent groups that swore allegiance to the Caliphate do exist in some parts of the world, including across South Asia and Central Asia. The world faces far more scattered terror threats, embedded in local and regional networks — often using AQ or ISIS brands to attract recruits. The new-age modus operandi using social media and lone-wolf actors poses formidable challenges.

The US has discontinued framing the threat of terrorism as a “global war”, even though its agencies and military continue to target networks across many theatres. The propaganda around “global jihad” has also become far less visible, which became evident after Hamas’s terror attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. The world has not seen a visible revival of a new global network championing the cause of Gaza yet.

The impact on India can only be assessed through a broader South Asian perspective, which requires going back to the 10 years of US-USSR proxy war in Afghanistan. The period (1979-89) witnessed the globalisation of a local Afghan jihad by the US and allies through a fatwa issued by an Arab teacher, Abdullah Azzam — loaned by a university in Jeddah to the International Islamic University of Islamabad in 1981. OBL and Azzam came to be in charge of the Service Bureau in Peshawar for the mobilisation of thousands of Arabs for this global jihad. OBL secretly created AQ in Peshawar around May 1988 with a very small, combat-ready, trusted Arab group, even before the withdrawal of Soviet troops. Pakistan, as a frontline state for the US-Arab and allies, mobilised Pakistanis and pitched them into the Afghan theatre to support the global jihad. The leaders of the Pakistani groups, close allies of AQ, became the top leaders of the groups that later assumed identities as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad networks.

The end of the proxy war in Afghanistan left the destabilised Af-Pak region as a key hub for AQ and its South Asian allies. Pakistan subsequently continued to use Pakistani groups against India, particularly in Kashmir and the hinterland. The threat to India and the wider region has not diminished with the conclusion of the WoT in Afghanistan. The 2025 Pahalgam terror attack and the subsequent “limited” military confrontation between India and Pakistan underscored the continuing security risks in the region. Moreover, repeated military confrontations between Afghanistan and Pakistan over allegations of mutual support for terrorist groups demonstrate the region’s enduring instability. The November 2025 Red Fort attack in Delhi further indicates the evolution of operational methods, highlighting that, despite 25 years of international counter-terrorism efforts since 9/11, the region continues to generate and sustain evolving security threats.

Gupta, a security analyst and former director general of police is the author of ‘Glocal Terror in South Asia, Tracing the Roots in Geopolitics and the Tragedy of Afghanistan’