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ISLAMABAD: Russia&#39;s top security official told regional leaders that between 18,000 and 23,000 armed terrorists from more than 20 separate groups are currently active inside Afghanistan, warning that the country remains a direct security threat to the broader region. According to Russia&#39;s state news agency TASS, Russian Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu delivered the assessment at the 21st meeting of security council secretaries of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states, held May 14 in Bishkek under Kyrgyz chairmanship. &quot;The situation in Afghanistan is of particular importance for ensuring security in the SCO space,&quot; Shoigu said, as quoted by TASS. &quot;This primarily concerns the threats of terrorism and drug trafficking emanating from its territory.&quot; ISIS presence put at 3,000 fighters Shoigu said ISIS affiliate operating in Afghanistan numbers around 3,000 members, according to Russian data. In 2025 alone, ISIS carried out 12 major terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, killing 40 military personnel and 25 civilians and wounding more than 50 others, as reported by TASS. Foreign fighters flowing in from Syria The Russian official Shoigu said there has been a notable increase in terrorists of Tajik and Uzbek origin entering Afghanistan from Syria. They were drawn from factions of the former Hayat Tahrir al-Sham alliance, which is designated a terrorist organization in Russia. He noted that some of these fighters remain outside the control of the interim Afghan government. Taliban enabling cross-border terrorism While the Afghan Taliban publicly denies hosting terrorist groups, international organizations have documented a starkly different picture on the ground. According to UN Security Council monitoring reports, the Taliban operates what assessors describe as a &quot;permissive environment,&quot; one in which multiple armed groups plan and launch attacks against neighboring states from Afghan soil. The UN has reported that the Afghan Taliban provides approximately $43,000 per month to Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the largest foreign terrorist &nbsp;group operating in Afghanistan with over 6,000 fighters. According to UN findings, the Taliban&#39;s General Directorate of Intelligence has established guest houses in Kabul for senior TTP leadership. They were also granted movement passes and weapons permits that effectively shield them from arrest. Cross-border attacks attributed to TTP operating from Afghan bases rose from 573 in 2021 to over 1,200 in 2024, according to UN assessments. Pakistan has issued repeated high-level diplomatic protests condemning the Taliban for providing sanctuary and arms used in those attacks. UN Secretary-General Ant&oacute;nio Guterres and multiple UN experts have stated that the Taliban must honor its international obligation to prevent Afghan territory from being used to threaten the security of other states. SCO meeting addresses wider threat landscape As per the SCO&#39;s official readout of the Bishkek meeting, participants also discussed pressing issues in the current international security environment, with specific attention to new risks in cybersecurity and information security. The gathering was attended by heads and senior officials from security council secretariats of member states, along with SCO Secretary-General Nurlan Yermekbayev and the director of the SCO&#39;s Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure. Yermekbayev said the organization is modernizing its security cooperation mechanisms. This includes establishing new specialized bodies to coordinate responses to terrorism, transnational organized crime, and cyber threats, according to the SCO&#39;s statement. UN assessments align with Russian figures International estimates reported by the UN Security Council Monitoring Team as of May 2026 similarly place the number of foreign terrorist fighters in Afghanistan at between 13,000 and 23,000. The UN&#39;s 37th monitoring report, issued in February 2026, found that some fighters have been integrated directly into Taliban-led security structures, a finding at odds with the Taliban&#39;s public position. The SCO&#39;s member states include Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran, and four Central Asian republics; countries that collectively share borders with Afghanistan or face direct spillover from terrorist activity operating on its soil.

Russia's Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu leaves after his bilateral meeting with Indonesia’s Defence Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin at the Defence Ministry in Jakarta on February 25, 2025. (AFP)

Afghanistan

Moscow says militants arriving from Syria, rising ISIS attacks and Taliban facilitation of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan have intensified fears that Afghan territory is increasingly being used to coordinate violence, destabilize neighboring countries, and expand extremist networks across Central and South Asia.

Over 20 terrorist groups active in Afghanistan, Russia warns SCO leaders

NEW YORK:&nbsp;Signatories of the landmark nuclear non-proliferation treaty began a meeting Monday at the United Nations as fears of a renewed arms race escalate, with atomic powers again at loggerheads over safeguards. In 2022, during the last review of the treaty considered the cornerstone of non-proliferation, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned humanity was &quot;one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.&quot; On Monday, he warned &quot;the drivers&quot; of nuclear weapons proliferation were accelerating. &quot;For too long, the treaty has been eroding. Commitments remain unfulfilled. Trust and credibility are wearing thin. The drivers of proliferation are accelerating. We need to breathe life into the treaty once more,&quot; Guterres said in opening remarks. With global geopolitical friction only heightened since the last meeting, it was unclear what the gathering at UN headquarters could achieve. France&#39;s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told signatories that &quot;never has the risk of nuclear proliferation been so high, and the threat posed by Iran&#39;s and North Korea&#39;s programs is intolerable for each and every state party to this treaty.&quot; Tempering expectations, Do Hung Viet, Vietnam&#39;s UN ambassador and president of the conference, said &quot;we should not expect this conference to resolve the underlying strategic tensions of our time.&quot; &quot;But a balanced outcome that reaffirms core commitments and set out practical steps forward would strengthen the integrity of the NPT,&quot; he said. &quot;The success or failure of this conference will have implications way beyond these halls,&quot; Viet added. &quot;The prospects of a new nuclear arms race are looming over us.&quot; The nine nuclear-armed states &mdash; Russia, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea &mdash; possessed 12,241 nuclear warheads in January 2025, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported. The US and Russia hold nearly 90% of nuclear weapons globally and have carried out major programs to modernize them in recent years, according to SIPRI. China has also rapidly increased its nuclear stockpile, SIPRI said, with the G7 raising the alarm Friday over Moscow and Beijing boosting their nuclear capabilities. US President Donald Trump has indicated his intention to conduct new nuclear tests, accusing others of doing so clandestinely. In March, French President Emmanuel Macron announced a dramatic shift in nuclear deterrence, notably an increase in the atomic arsenal, currently numbering 290 warheads. International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi, just returned from 40th anniversary events at Chernobyl to mark the nuclear disaster there, said &quot;there is a growing perception that perhaps having nuclear weapons could be good for national security.&quot; &quot;Nothing is further from the truth,&quot; he said. &#39;Affront&#39; to NPT&nbsp;&quot;It is obvious that trust is eroding, both inside and outside the NPT,&quot; Seth Shelden of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, told AFP. He questioned the likely outcome of the four-week summit. Decisions on the NPT require agreement by consensus, with the previous two conferences failing to adopt final political declarations. In 2015, the deadlock was largely due to opposition by Israel&#39;s arch-ally Washington to creation of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East. A 2022 impasse was due mainly to Russian opposition to references to Ukraine&#39;s nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia, occupied by Moscow. This year&#39;s summit could hit any number of stumbling blocks. The ongoing war in Ukraine, Iran&#39;s nuclear program and the war there, proliferation fears, and Pyongyang&#39;s developing arsenal could all be deal-breakers. The United States, along with its allies Britain, the UAE, and Australia, spoke out at Iran&#39;s appointment as a conference vice president. Washington&#39;s meeting envoy said conferring a leadership role on Tehran was an &quot;affront&quot; to countries that take the NPT &quot;seriously.&quot; Artificial intelligence could be a prominent issue as some countries call for all sides to keep human control over nuclear weapons.

Americas

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Monday that "the drivers" of nuclear weapons proliferation were accelerating as he opened a crunch meeting of signatories to the landmark non-proliferation treaty

Articles tagged with "UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres"

Over 20 terrorist groups active in Afghanistan, Russia warns SCO leaders

'Looming' risk of nuclear arms race, UN proliferation meeting hears