INTRODUCTION
Some books explain terrorism through ideology. Others explain it through geopolitics. The rarer and more valuable works are those that understand terrorism as the product of both: ideas weaponised by states, grievances internationalised by networks, and local conflicts transformed into global crises. Glocal Terror in South Asia: Tracing the Roots in Geopolitics and the Tragedy of Afghanistan by Ms Anju Gupta, IPS (Retd), is one such work. At a time when the return of the Taliban, the persistence of transnational jihadist networks, and the continuing instability of the Af-Pak region have renewed global concern, Gupta offers a timely and painstakingly researched account of the long arc through which South Asia became central to the story of modern transnational jihad and how local insurgencies were transformed into global theatres of terror.
The title itself is astute. ‘Glocal’ captures the fusion of the local and the global: village insurgencies tied to world powers, neighbourhood grievances channelled into civilisational rhetoric, regional militant actors linked to global terror enterprises. The author’s central argument is that terrorism in South Asia cannot be understood through neat compartments. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Arab Islamist mobilisation, Pakistan’s strategic calculations, the Kashmir conflict, Al Qaeda’s rise, the American War on Terror, and the Taliban’s return are not separate episodes but connected chapters in a larger continuum.
Anju Gupta, a respected commentator on South Asian security issues, writes with the clarity of a former officer, the patience of a scholar, and the instinct of a storyteller. For readers attempting to understand why South Asia remains central to global terrorism discourse, this volume offers an important starting point.
CONNECTING THE THREADS: CHAPTER-WISE SYNTHESIS
Framing the Problem
The introduction is striking in both imagery and argument. The reader is immediately plunged into the extraordinary scenes of August 2021, when Kabul fell with startling speed, and the Taliban re-entered the presidential palace from which they had been ousted exactly twenty years earlier. Rather than treating that moment as an isolated failure, the book uses it as the first clue in a historical investigation to pose a larger question: how did the region travel from the anti-Soviet jihad of 1979 to the War on Terror triumphalism of 2001, and finally, to the humiliation of 2021 with the return of Taliban 2.0? That narrative momentum is then maintained across the book. This framing device is effective because it rejects the common tendency to begin the story with 9/11. The author insists on tracing the deeper origins of the crisis to the period between the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the attacks of September 2001. The author also reminds readers that Afghanistan’s turbulence was never remote from Indian security interests. The 1999 hijacking of IC-814, routed to Taliban-controlled Kandahar, and later online recruitment efforts linked to ISKP targeting Indians illustrate how developments in Af-Pak repeatedly spill outward.
The Cold War Crucible
Chapter One, ‘Proxy War of Superpowers,’ situates Afghanistan within the Cold War rivalry between Washington and Moscow. Gupta revisits the Soviet intervention of 1979, the removal of Hafizullah Amin, the subsequent mobilisation of the United States, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia in support of Afghan resistance groups, and the installation of leaders like Babrak Karmal. She carefully explains how what appeared to be a regional intervention rapidly became a global proxy war.
One of the strongest aspects of the chapter is how it demonstrates that Pakistan was not a peripheral ally assisting the US but an indispensable operational hub. Under General Zia-ul-Haq (and his self-proclaimed title of the ‘custodian of Islamic values’), Pakistan positioned itself as the frontline state. The ISI became the conduit through which money, weapons, training, coordination and political patronage were distributed to Afghan resistance groups. Gupta also notes that Islamabad publicly framed its role in defensive terms, yet, beneath that lay broader calculations: influence in Kabul, ideological alignment under Zia’s Islamisation programme, and the chance to emerge as a pivotal Western ally.
Equally compelling is the author’s mapping of the Afghan resistance itself. Popular memory often treats the mujahideen as a unified anti-Soviet force; Gupta dismantles that simplification. She introduces readers to a fragmented landscape of commanders, parties, ethnic constituencies and regional power centres. From the Tajik leader Ahmad Shah Massoud in Panjshir to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who commanded Hizb-e-Islami networks; from Yunus Khalis and Abdul Rasul Sayyaf to Jalaluddin Haqqani, whose name would later acquire global notoriety, these profiles are not ornamental details; they are central to Gupta’s argument. Tribal loyalties, ethnic identities, ideological differences, foreign patronage, and personal rivalries coexisted under the broad banner of anti-Soviet resistance. That fragmentation mattered enormously after the Soviet withdrawal, when the common enemy disappeared, and internal contestation returned with force.
The chapter’s most sobering contribution lies in its final implication: victories in proxy wars often leave behind armed ecosystems that no sponsor fully controls. By the late 1980s, the anti-Soviet campaign had produced trained fighters, clandestine financial routes, madrasa-linked recruitment pools and training camps, ideological patronage, militant hierarchies, cross-border smuggling channels, and intelligence habits of deniable warfare. None of these disappeared when Soviet troops withdrew. The chapter’s value lies in demonstrating that such an infrastructure of later jihadism did not emerge spontaneously. Gupta is persuasive in arguing that what was presented as anti-Soviet resistance also created a durable ecosystem of militancy whose afterlife outlasted the Cold War itself. As an opening chapter, it succeeds admirably. It provides readers with a chronology, introduces principal actors, explains motives, and, most importantly, reveals that what the world later called terrorism was inseparable from earlier statecraft.
From Arab Causes to Global Jihad
Titled ‘Churnings of the Arab World: The Genesis of Global Jihad,’ Chapter Two prevents the reader from making a common analytical mistake: assuming that the rise of transnational jihad can be explained by Afghanistan alone. Gupta demonstrates, with considerable skill, that Afghanistan became the meeting ground of forces whose origins lay elsewhere–Palestine, authoritarian Arab politics, and the rise and suppression of Islamist movements.
Gupta treats Palestine not merely as a territorial dispute but as a political symbol that resonated across the Arab and wider Muslim world for decades. She revisits the end of the British Mandate, the 1947 UN partition proposal, the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and the displacement of Palestinians after the creation of Israel. These events, she notes, entered Arab political consciousness as a collective wound. The Six-Day War shattered the prestige of Arab nationalist regimes, discredited military elites, and created space for alternative ideological currents. The chapter references organisations such as the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) that emerged amid statelessness and exile. It notes how tactics such as aircraft hijackings and international hostage-taking brought the Palestinian issue global attention, while also normalising the idea that spectacular violence could force neglected causes onto the world stage. This is a subtle but significant point. Gupta does not conflate Palestinian nationalism with later jihadism but shows how methods of transnational militancy evolved in overlapping historical space.
Another major contribution of the chapter is its treatment of Arab domestic politics. Gupta examines how many post-colonial Arab states consolidated power through authoritarian systems that limited political participation, suppressed dissent, and narrowed avenues for legitimate opposition. In such environments, Islamist organisations often became the most organised social alternatives. Jordan, Egypt, and other Arab states also appear as places where domestic frustrations and state surveillance shaped future militants. Gupta uses this context to explain why Islamist movements gained resonance not simply through doctrine, but through service provision, moral messaging, and organisational discipline.
Her discussion of the Muslim Brotherhood is especially valuable and presented as one of the earliest and most influential modern Islamist movements. Over time, the movement’s suppression by Arab regimes radicalised some of its fringes, while other elements continued to pursue gradualist or political strategies. This distinction matters greatly. Gupta avoids the lazy assumption that all Islamism was identical. Instead, she shows ideological branching, internal contestation, and the pathways by which repression sometimes generated more militant offshoots.
The chapter’s treatment of Saudi Arabia is equally significant. Gupta explains how the kingdom’s wealth, religious prestige, and geopolitical anxieties made it a central actor in the late Cold War Muslim world. Saudi funding reached educational institutions, charities, religious causes, and later anti-Soviet mobilisation. Afghanistan thus became attractive not only because it was under occupation, but because influential states and clerical establishments were prepared to elevate it into a sacred cause.
One of the most insightful arguments in the chapter is that Afghanistan solved a political problem for many disaffected activists. To fight one’s own state was dangerous, unpopular, or strategically impossible. To fight in Afghanistan, by contrast, could be framed as heroic, religiously sanctioned, and internationally admired. Gupta’s phrasing of this transformation is particularly strong: local frustrations were globalised through a foreign war. The chapter also captures the emotional power of humiliation in politics. Military defeats, occupation, corruption, inequality, and the visible gap between official rhetoric and lived reality created fertile ground for movements promising dignity through struggle. Gupta does not romanticise these responses, but she does insist that they must be historically understood. Extremism cannot be analysed only through security lenses; it must also be read through memory, identity, and political failure.
What makes this chapter especially impressive is that Gupta resists determinism. She does not claim that Palestine inevitably produced jihadism, or that Arab authoritarianism automatically generated global terror. Rather, she shows how multiple unresolved tensions created a reservoir of grievance. Afghanistan then provided the opportunity structure through which that reservoir was tapped. The chapter broadens the reader’s map, complicates simplistic narratives, and reminds us that global jihad was not born in one country. It was assembled from many wounds, many failures, and many ambitions–Afghanistan merely gave them a battlefield.
The Globalisation of the Afghan Jihad
If the previous chapter explains the ideological reservoir from which global jihad drew energy, Chapter Three shows how it was channelled, organised, and weaponised. In chapter three, titled ‘Globalisation of Afghan Jihad–The Foundation for Terrorism,’ Gupta demonstrates that the Afghan jihad was deliberately globalised through state patronage, religious legitimisation, diplomatic coordination, media narratives, charity networks, and sustained financial investment.
One of the chapter’s strongest contributions is its treatment of multilateral diplomacy. Gupta highlights the role of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), whose forums became important vehicles for turning Afghanistan into a wider Muslim cause. Conferences in Islamabad and Mecca are discussed as moments where Afghanistan was rhetorically linked to Palestine, anti-colonial memory, and the language of Muslim solidarity. This diplomatic dimension is often overlooked in popular histories. Yet, Gupta shows that international legitimacy matters in conflict mobilisation. Afghanistan ceased to be merely a national struggle and became a cause that could be championed from Morocco to Malaysia. Such framing widened donor pools, normalised volunteer participation, and transformed a regional war into a symbolic front line of the Muslim world.
The chapter is especially illuminating in its discussion of propaganda. Gupta explains how the Afghan conflict was narrated through sermons, pamphlets, speeches, newsletters, mosque campaigns, and transnational religious networks. The war was presented not in the technical language of geopolitics but through emotionally potent themes: defence of Muslim land, resistance to atheist occupation, honour, sacrifice, martyrdom, and fraternity. This narrative translated a remote mountain war into a moral imperative understandable to ordinary believers thousands of miles away. Millions who knew little of Afghan tribal politics or Cold War strategy could still understand a simple message that fellow Muslims were under attack and required support. Once simplified into moral drama, the conflict became portable.
In this regard, Gupta treats Abdullah Azzam as one of the most influential ideological entrepreneurs of the Afghan jihad. By arguing that the defence of occupied Muslim land created an immediate personal obligation, Azzam lowered barriers to participation. Young men from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Jordan, Yemen and elsewhere could imagine themselves not as outsiders but as legitimate participants. Afghanistan was no longer someone else’s war. It was their test of faith.
Another major strength of the chapter is its handling of finance. Gupta notes that Saudi support to the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s ran into billions of dollars and, by some estimates she cites, far exceeded earlier funding extended to causes such as the PLO. Relief committees, refugee assistance drives, zakat campaigns, and mosque fundraising often operated alongside or adjacent to militant mobilisation. Money collected in the name of aid could circulate within wider networks of recruitment and war support.
The chapter also effectively foreshadows the future trajectory–and future fractures–of the Afghan jihad by introducing figures who would later redefine global militancy, most notably Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. It notes that bin Laden arrived not initially as the commanding mastermind of popular imagination, but as a wealthy Saudi volunteer who brought money, construction capacity, networks, and organisational energy that proved invaluable to incoming Arab fighters in the Afghan theatre. Zawahiri, by contrast, represented a different strand of militancy: the hardened Egyptian revolutionary shaped by clandestine politics, prison experiences, and the ideological legacy of Egyptian Islamist radicalism. By placing them within this chapter, Gupta shows that the seeds of Al Qaeda were already being sown even before the Soviet war had ended; beneath the rhetoric of unity, a new cadre was emerging that saw jihad not as a single conflict, but as a permanent transnational project.
The Rise of Al Qaeda
Chapter Four, ‘The Rise of Al Qaeda’s Global Network’, is among the most gripping and consequential sections of the book, as the narrative acquires sharper urgency and shows how the earlier discussed roots of terror metastasised into a sophisticated global enterprise. One of the chapter’s greatest strengths lies in its methodical reconstruction of Al Qaeda’s post-Soviet evolution. Rather than portraying Osama bin Laden’s rise as inevitable, the author carefully demonstrates how geopolitical openings, weak states, ideological alliances, and logistical innovation enabled the group’s expansion. The failed Jalalabad campaign, the relocation to Sudan, and later the shift to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan are all presented as turning points that refined the organisation’s strategy.
The discussion of Sudan is especially illuminating. Often overlooked in popular accounts, the Sudan years are shown as foundational to Al Qaeda’s maturation. The group used businesses, charities, transport firms, and commercial fronts not merely for funding but for concealment, mobility, and procurement. Equally compelling is the chapter’s treatment of Al Qaeda’s internationalisation. The emergence of cells and facilitators in London, East Africa, the Gulf, Europe, and the United States demonstrates how early the organisation grasped the value of diaspora networks, document fraud, communications hubs, and global travel routes. The author convincingly presents Al Qaeda as a nodal system–ideologically centralised yet operationally dispersed. In hindsight, this framework helps explain the durability of jihadist movements long after territorial sanctuaries were lost.
Stylistically, the chapter is dense with names, dates, movements, and linkages, yet this density serves a purpose. It mirrors the complexity of the network itself. For readers unfamiliar with the period, the volume of detail may occasionally feel overwhelming, but for serious students of terrorism, intelligence studies, or international security, it becomes one of the chapter’s greatest assets. The documentation gives credibility and demonstrates the painstaking hidden labour through which extremist networks are built.
Poster Boys of Glocal Jihad
Chapter Five shifts the focus from abstract structures of terrorism to the men who operationalised, symbolised, and internationalised jihadist violence emerging from the Af-Pak theatre. The chapter’s greatest strength lies in its central argument: that Pakistan-based jihadist networks did not remain confined to South Asia but produced figures who became global operatives. By using the phrase “poster boys,” the author captures the propaganda value, symbolic stature, and operational prominence of these militants. They were not merely foot soldiers; they were brands of terror, whose names inspired recruits, attracted financiers, and linked regional grievances to global jihadist narratives. This framing is particularly effective because it reveals how terrorism functions not only through organisations, but also through personalities.
The chapter opens powerfully with Ramzi Yousef, architect of the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing, and situates him as an early prototype of the globally mobile jihadist. His story is narrated not simply as a criminal biography but as evidence of how Pakistan served as a permissive environment for militants moving between safe houses, forged identities, training camps, and international targets. The discussion of Operation Bojinka–the foiled aviation plot involving simultaneous airline bombings–adds historical depth, reminding readers that ambitions later realised on 9/11 had earlier precedents. In doing so, the author persuasively challenges the tendency to view spectacular terrorism as spontaneous or unprecedented.
The section on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is equally significant. Rather than reducing him to the “mastermind of 9/11,” the chapter places him within a longer continuum of militancy, familial networks, and Afghan jihad-era linkages. This broader contextualisation is valuable because it shows that major terrorist attacks are rarely the product of lone genius; they emerge from overlapping circles of kinship, ideology, logistics, and sanctuary. The chapter repeatedly returns to this theme, making clear that networks matter more than individuals, even when individuals become iconic.
Where the chapter becomes especially compelling for Indian readers is in its treatment of Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, and the IC-814 hijacking. These episodes are narrated not as isolated acts of anti-India terrorism, but as turning points in the wider jihadist movement. Azhar’s release after the hijacking and his later creation of Jaish-e-Mohammed illustrate how tactical concessions can yield long-term strategic consequences. Likewise, Omar Saeed Sheikh’s trajectory–from radicalisation in Britain to kidnappings in India and links to the Daniel Pearl case–demonstrates the fusion of Western education, diasporic identity crises, and South Asian militancy. The author is particularly effective in showing how the India-focused theatre intersected with global terrorism.
One of the chapter’s most contemporary and forceful sections concerns David Headley, Tahawwur Rana, and Ilyas Kashmiri. Here, the chapter reaches its analytical peak. Headley’s dual identity, ease of travel, reconnaissance role in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, and links spanning Lashkar-e-Taiba, Al Qaeda, and Pakistani handlers exemplify the hybridisation of terror networks in the post-9/11 era. The chapter rightly portrays 26/11 as not merely a Pakistani proxy attack on India, but as an event with global victims, international planning dimensions, and transnational repercussions. In connecting Headley’s later Denmark plot and Kashmiri’s emergence as an external operations planner, the author shows how the same networks adapted, diversified, and persisted after Mumbai.
The concluding profiles of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and Sajid Mir further strengthen the chapter by highlighting leadership continuity. While operatives may be killed or arrested, ideological entrepreneurs, financiers, planners, and institutional figures often survive longer and regenerate networks. The emphasis on charitable fronts, recruitment infrastructures, and state reluctance to act decisively offers an implicit critique of selective counterterrorism policies. This chapter is one of the book’s most arresting and consequential contributions, and a personal favourite. It transforms terrorism from an abstraction into a gallery of men whose decisions altered world history
Kashmir and Cross-Border Terrorism
Chapter Six, ‘Failed Kashmir Jihad: Cross-Border Terrorism,’ dissects how Pakistan’s long-standing attempt to transform Kashmir into an Afghanistan-style jihad theatre ultimately faltered despite decades of sponsorship, propaganda, and terror engineering. The chapter stands out for combining historical context, intelligence detail, and geopolitical analysis, demonstrating how the Kashmir insurgency was neither a spontaneous indigenous uprising nor a successful Islamist revolution, but a carefully cultivated cross-border project that never achieved the mass ideological legitimacy its sponsors desired.
The chapter opens strongly by situating Kashmir within the broader imagination of transnational jihad. Gupta notes that as early as 1988, Osama bin Laden had identified Kashmir as a potential future theatre for Arab Afghan veterans after the Soviet war. This immediately elevates the Kashmir issue from a bilateral territorial dispute to a node in the global jihadist imagination. Yet the author’s central argument is that while Pakistan hoped to replicate the Afghan model, Kashmir proved fundamentally different. The movement lacked the organic religious fervour, tribal autonomy, and anti-occupation consensus that had sustained the Afghan jihad.
Gupta is especially effective in tracing the evolution of militancy from separatist politics to jihadist terrorism. She explains how Pakistan initially backed the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), whose goal was an independent Kashmir rather than accession to Pakistan. When this nationalist line did not suit Islamabad’s interests, Pakistan shifted patronage to Hizbul Mujahideen and other Islamist proxies more aligned with mergerist objectives.
Another major contribution of the chapter is its treatment of the criminalisation and internationalisation of the conflict. The kidnappings of Rubaiya Sayeed, Western tourists, and foreign nationals in Delhi are narrated as deliberate attempts to globalise the Kashmir cause through spectacle and coercion. Gupta demonstrates how hostage-taking became both a propaganda tool and a bargaining mechanism. The discussion of the 1995 kidnapping of Western trekkers in Kashmir is particularly chilling, exposing how international civilians became pawns in a conflict they barely understood.
Gupta is nuanced in the chapter’s conclusion regarding failure. Pakistan succeeded in injecting violence, fear, and instability into Kashmir, but failed to generate a genuine jihad rooted in local society. Arab fighters remained peripheral, local enthusiasm was uneven, separatist groups were divided, and many Kashmiris did not embrace the global jihadist agenda. Overall, the chapter successfully transforms a familiar subject into a deeper lesson on the limits of proxy warfare. It shows that terror can be exported, networks can be funded, and violence can be sustained, but legitimacy cannot be manufactured at gunpoint.
The Taliban’s Rise
This chapter offers a layered reconstruction of the Taliban’s emergence, moving beyond simplistic narratives of religious mobilisation to foreground the interplay of state sponsorship, warlord fragmentation, economic incentives, and geopolitical calculation. It situates the Taliban’s birth within the structural chaos of post-Soviet Afghanistan. Rather than portraying the movement as an organic ideological uprising, Gupta convincingly demonstrates that it was, from its inception, deeply intertwined with Pakistan’s strategic calculus. The account of the 1994 Spin Boldak operation is particularly effective, illustrating how early Taliban successes were not spontaneous victories but coordinated efforts supported by Pakistani actors, including logistical backing and cross-border facilitation. This sets the tone for the chapter’s central argument: that the Taliban’s rise cannot be understood without acknowledging the deliberate engineering of conditions that enabled it. The author also pays attention to the economic logic underpinning the Taliban’s expansion. The Taliban’s consolidation of territory is shown to be closely tied to securing revenue streams and ensuring the uninterrupted flow of goods between Pakistan and Central Asia.
The discussion of madrassa networks and recruitment further deepens this analysis. The chapter carefully traces how Afghan refugee populations in Pakistan, particularly students in Deobandi madrassas, became a ready pool of recruits. However, rather than reducing this to religious indoctrination alone, the author links it to broader socio-political grievances–lawlessness, predatory warlords, and the exhaustion of a war-weary population. This helps explain the Taliban’s initial legitimacy among sections of Afghan society, who perceived them as a force capable of restoring order. Another notable contribution is the chapter’s detailed mapping of external actors. The roles of Saudi Arabia, the United States, and Iran are woven into the narrative with precision, avoiding both exaggeration and omission.
The latter half of the chapter, which traces the Taliban’s march to Kabul and eventual consolidation of power, is particularly vivid. The capture of Kabul in 1996 is not presented as an inevitable outcome but as the culmination of calculated military advances, negotiated surrenders, and shifting alliances. The symbolic moment of Mullah Omar being declared Amir-ul-Momineen is effectively used to illustrate how religious legitimacy was constructed and deployed to solidify authority. The author has succeeded in offering a comprehensive and critical account of the Taliban’s rise. It effectively dismantles reductive explanations and instead presents the movement as a product of converging forces–strategic, economic, ideological, and geopolitical. In doing so, it not only enhances the reader’s understanding of Afghanistan’s recent history but also provides a framework for analysing contemporary insurgencies.
The War on Terror
Chapter eight, ‘The War on Terror in Afghanistan and Iraq,’ offers a sweeping yet structured account of the United States’ post-9/11 military engagements, situating them within both immediate counterterror imperatives and longer-term geopolitical consequences. The chapter opens effectively with the 9/11 attacks, framing them not merely as an act of terror but as a catalytic rupture in global security paradigms. The author carefully reconstructs the sequence of events and identifies the attackers, emphasising their transnational composition and links to Al Qaeda.
The discussion of Afghanistan is the most detailed and analytically engaging part of the chapter. The author traces the evolution from diplomatic pressure on the Taliban to the launch of Operation Enduring Freedom, highlighting the interplay between US objectives, Taliban resistance, and the role of regional actors such as Pakistan. The narrative effectively captures the early military successes–such as the rapid collapse of Taliban control–and juxtaposes them with the failure to capture Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora, a moment that is implicitly framed as a strategic turning point. Particularly noteworthy is the treatment of post-conflict reconstruction. The chapter outlines the Bonn Agreement, the establishment of interim governance under Hamid Karzai, and the role of international institutions like the UN and NATO-led ISAF. The section on the Obama administration introduces a shift in tone, reflecting a more complex and arguably conflicted US strategy. The chapter effectively captures the dual approach of troop surges and planned withdrawals, alongside attempts at political reconciliation and regional diplomacy. The inclusion of initiatives such as the Af-Pak strategy and the outreach to the Muslim world adds depth, demonstrating an awareness of the limits of purely military solutions.
Gupta also outlines, in the Iraq section, the justification for the invasion–particularly the alleged presence of weapons of mass destruction–and tracks the subsequent insurgency, the rise of Al Qaeda in Iraq, and the eventual emergence of ISIS. The narrative clearly identifies the unintended consequences of the intervention, especially the destabilisation that followed the dismantling of Saddam Hussein’s regime. In the context of a broader book, this chapter functions as a crucial bridge between the origins of global jihadist movements and their evolution in the 21st century. It reinforces the idea that the War on Terror, rather than eliminating terrorism, reshaped and in some cases intensified it across regions.
The Return of the Taliban
The chapter ‘The Return of the Taliban’ offers a detailed and policy-oriented examination of the evolving security landscape in Afghanistan from the drawdown of US forces in 2014 to the Taliban’s eventual return to power in 2021. At the outset, the chapter effectively situates the reader in the post-2014 transition phase, when the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces (ANDSF) assumed primary responsibility for security operations. It highlights how this transition, though presented as a milestone, masked deep structural weaknesses–overdependence on foreign funding, logistical fragility, and limited operational autonomy. The discussion on the emergence of the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) adds an important layer, demonstrating how Afghanistan’s conflict ecosystem became more complex rather than stabilised. This framing ensures that the “return” of the Taliban is not treated as sudden, but as the culmination of a deteriorating security environment.
A major strength of the chapter lies in its rigorous engagement with policy documents, particularly the June 2017 and subsequent DoD reports. The author carefully dissects US strategy under both the Obama and Trump administrations, showing continuity in objectives but divergence in execution. The shift from time-bound withdrawal to a conditions-based approach under President Donald Trump is analysed with nuance, especially in terms of its intended deterrent effect versus its practical limitations.
The section on reconciliation efforts and the US-Taliban negotiations is particularly insightful. The author traces the diplomatic trajectory from early reconciliation attempts to the Doha Agreement of February 2020, highlighting the inherent contradictions in negotiating with an insurgent group while attempting to strengthen the very state it sought to overthrow. The discussion of figures like Zalmay Khalilzad and the role of regional actors–especially Pakistan–adds important geopolitical context. Equally compelling is Gupta’s analysis of the ANDSF’s structural vulnerabilities. Drawing on multiple data points–such as funding dependencies, attrition rates, and operational challenges in remote provinces–the author demonstrates that the Afghan forces were, in many ways, a “hollow institution.” The narrative carefully dismantles the widespread assumption that financial support and training alone could compensate for weak political legitimacy and fragmented command structures. The statistical references–such as the scale of US funding and troop deployments over time–lend empirical weight to this argument.
The chapter reaches its analytical peak in the sections detailing the final phase of US withdrawal and the rapid Taliban takeover in August 2021. The account of cascading provincial collapses, the psychological impact of US troop drawdown, and the absence of coherent Afghan political leadership is particularly striking. Rather than attributing the collapse to a single factor, the author presents it as the outcome of cumulative strategic miscalculations. In sum, this chapter is a meticulously researched and analytically robust contribution that effectively explains the structural and strategic factors behind the Taliban’s resurgence. Its strength lies in connecting policy decisions to ground realities, thereby offering a layered understanding of state failure and insurgent success.
What Next?
The tenth and final chapter, titled ‘What’s Next?’, serves as a fitting and forward-looking culmination to the book’s broader narrative on terrorism, geopolitics, and instability in South Asia. It revisits the central question of whether the United States achieved its objectives in Afghanistan, ultimately presenting a nuanced argument: while Washington may have succeeded in weakening Al Qaeda’s operational capacity, it fell short of establishing a stable political order.
The discussion then transitions to the post-withdrawal landscape under Taliban 2.0, offering a layered examination of the regime’s evolving governance. The author identifies several pressing challenges confronting the Taliban, including economic fragility, humanitarian crises, limited international recognition, and persistent tensions with neighbouring states. This analysis is thorough and data-driven. Particularly notable is the linkage between international sanctions, aid dependency, and domestic governance constraints, which underscores the structural nature of Afghanistan’s instability rather than reducing it to regime incompetence alone.
A notable strength of the chapter is its incorporation of primary insights through an interview with Mohammad Suhail Shaheen, head of the Taliban political office in Doha and Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Qatar. This section enriches the analysis by providing the Taliban’s own articulation of its achievements, priorities, and constraints. It offers a rare glimpse into the regime’s self-perception–particularly its emphasis on security, economic development, and diplomatic outreach–while also revealing the gaps between official narratives and on-ground realities.
The conclusion is particularly striking for its forward-looking lens, where the author outlines potential “black swan” events that could reshape the region. These include scenarios such as internal instability within Pakistan, renewed external interventions in Afghanistan, and the possible resurgence or reconfiguration of transnational jihadist networks. By introducing these contingencies, the author reinforces the unpredictability of the region and cautions against linear or overly optimistic projections.
CONCLUSION
Glocal Terror in South Asia is not merely a chronicle of past violence but a sobering reflection on how deeply intertwined geopolitics, ideology, and statecraft have been in shaping the modern landscape of terrorism. What emerges most powerfully from Gupta’s work is the unsettling continuity of history: the actors may change, the theatres may shift, and the rhetoric may evolve, but the underlying patterns of proxy warfare, ideological mobilisation, and strategic short-sightedness persist. The book compels the reader to recognise that terrorism in South Asia is neither accidental nor episodic–it is the cumulative outcome of decades of decisions, miscalculations, and deliberate policies that transcended borders and outlived their original intent. Gupta’s greatest contribution lies in dismantling the illusion of compartmentalisation. By tracing a seamless arc from the Cold War to Taliban 2.0, she demonstrates that the past is never truly past in this region; it is embedded in the present, shaping both threats and responses.Ultimately, this is a work that demands engagement, not passive reading. It challenges policymakers to think beyond binaries, scholars to reconsider linear narratives, and readers to confront the uncomfortable truth that terrorism, in many ways, has been as much a product of international politics as of extremist ideology. If there is one lasting impression the book leaves, it is this: the story of terror in South Asia is far from over, and unless its deeper structural roots are understood and addressed, it is a story that will continue to be written, with consequences that extend well beyond the region itself.
