Addressing a Council meeting on Afghanistan on Wednesday, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish, said the international community must confront not only individual terrorists but also the systems that shelter, finance and enable them.
Harish recalled that Osama bin Laden, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other senior al-Qaeda figures were eventually located outside the kind of remote hideouts often associated with fugitive militants. “In each case, these were not fugitives hiding in caves or badlands; they were men who had for long evaded detection,” he said.
He said bin Laden, who ordered and financed the 9/11 plot, was tracked down and killed in a fortified compound in a settled, guarded community during Operation Neptune Spear. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, described by Harish as the principal architect of the attacks, was found in an ordinary residential house.
Harish also cited Ramzi Binalshibh, who coordinated the hijacker cell after being denied a visa to join it, as well as senior al-Qaeda operative Walid bin Attash and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, whom he described as a key financial and logistical facilitator of the plot.
The ambassador said the cases showed why counter-terrorism efforts could not be confined to armed groups operating from remote terrain. He called for action against what he described as an enabling environment that had allowed al-Qaeda and its affiliates to evade accountability and preserve operational space.
“The same permissive environment that sheltered the architects of 9/11 has, in the years since, continued to provide space, support, and impunity to affiliates of Al Qaeda such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed and their like,” Harish told the Council. He said such groups had adopted different identities to evade UN sanctions and alleged that their leadership and training infrastructure had been shielded from consequences.
The statement came during the Security Council’s 16 September meeting on Afghanistan, held against the backdrop of the latest Secretary-General’s report on the country. UN officials told the Council that Afghanistan continued to face serious concerns over the presence of terrorist groups alongside severe restrictions on women and girls, an exclusionary political system and a wider human rights crisis.
Georgette Gagnon, the UN’s deputy special representative for Afghanistan, said the de facto authorities had highlighted nationwide control, improved security and economic stabilisation efforts but that no progress had been made on several issues of international concern, including the continued presence of terrorist groups threatening Afghanistan, the region and international peace and security.
Harish linked his remarks to the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, noting that the Council had commemorated the victims and that members had visited the site of the attacks in New York earlier this month. He said their memory should reinforce action against those who commit terrorism as well as those who aid, finance or support such crimes.
India also reiterated support for the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and called for sustained engagement with the Afghan people. Harish said India had undertaken more than 500 development projects across all 34 provinces and would continue humanitarian support, including healthcare, education and assistance for returning Afghans.
He said India had supplied more than 50,000 tonnes of wheat, over 450 tonnes of medicines and vaccines and 40,000 litres of pesticides to Afghanistan since August 2021. During the latest reporting period, India had also provided specialised medical equipment and 17 tonnes of essential medicines and consumables.
He also pointed to India’s efforts to expand trade, facilitate Afghan exports and maintain tariff-free access for Afghan goods. Harish said discussions with authorities covered agriculture, irrigation, horticulture, livestock, food processing and capacity-building, while cooperation with UN agencies supported rehabilitation programmes for people affected by drug addiction.
