ISIS, al Qaeda ‘significant challenge’ to South Asia post regime change in Afghanistan: Shah

NEW DELHI: The situation in the South Asian region has changed after the regime change in Afghanistan in August last year, with the growing influence of al Qaeda and ISIS posing significant challenge to regional security, Home Minister Amit Shah said Friday.

Addressing a session at the 3rd ‘No Money for Terror Ministerial Conference on Counter-Terrorism Financing’, Shah, without taking the name of Taliban, said these new equations have made the problem of terror financing more serious.

“Three decades ago, the whole world has had to bear the serious consequences of one such regime change, the result of which we all have seen in the horrific attack of 9/11,” he said, hinting at Taliban’s rise of power in Afghanistan during 1990s post withdrawal of Soviet forces and collapse of the USSR.

The home minister said in this background, last year’s changes in the South Asian region are a matter of concern for all of us.

“Along with al Qaeda, organisations in South Asia like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed continue to spread terror,” he said.

Shah said we should never ignore terrorists’ safe havens or their resources.

“We also have to expose the double-speak of such elements who sponsor and support them. Therefore, it is important that this Conference, the participating countries, and the organisations, should not take a selective, or complacent perspective of the challenges of this region,” he said. (PTI)