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Does Europe face a resurging terrorist threat after the Moscow attack?
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics from Stockholm.
Is the terrorist threat to Europe back after what happened in Moscow?Well, the bad news is, yes, it's there. There's no question about it. It's still coming out. Central Asia, Afghanistan. We have a very disturbing situation in part of Africa with ISIS gaining ground in different ways, so not directly threatening Europe so far. And we should not forget that we have a situation in the Middle East with Gaza and all of the emotions that that is leading to, that is bound to be a recruitment possibility for these particular groups. The good news, if there is any, is of course that evidently the Americans were able to pick up advance warning of this particular terrorist attack. And that shows that we have intelligence capabilities combined with different countries that could give us somewhat more security than perhaps we had in the past. The bad news in this particular situation is, of course, the Russian authorities didn't listen and very many innocent Russians had to pay a very heavy price for that.
We have to learn all of these particular lessons as we move ahead.
How will the Taliban handle ISIS and other terrorist groups?
Though the Taliban is now in control of Afghanistan, terrorist groups still operate freely throughout the country. Among them is ISIS-Khorasan (or ISIS-K), which was created in 2015 by disaffected members of the Taliban who pushed for a more hardline approach to Islam.
Journalist and author Ahmed Rashid wonders whether the Taliban is likely to stop these groups, most of whom previously worked alongside the Taliban to oppose their common enemy, the United States. “What do the Taliban do with these people? Even if they would be willing to wrap them up, what do they do? Do they kill them? Do they put them in jail?” he pointed out in an interview with Ian Bremmer on GZERO World.
Watch the GZERO World episode: Taliban 2.0: Afghanistan on the Brink (US AWOL)