The Taliban’s tolerance of the TTP is enabling the group’s transformation into a transnational threat.

Once considered a regional menace, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has now been elevated in U.S. security assessments as a credible global threat. In its 2025 Annual Threat Assessment, U.S. intelligence formally designated the group a “potential future threat” to American interests, citing its deepening ties to al-Qaeda and increasing reach beyond South Asia. For years, Pakistani officials have sounded alarms over the TTP’s transnational ambitions; Washington appears to be finally listening.

Recent intelligence reviewed by the Associated Press reveals that TTP militants have held joint training sessions with al-Qaeda affiliates in Afghanistan’s rugged Kunar province. Two Pentagon officials, speaking on background, confirmed the findings from classified assessments. A chilling detail emerged from a State Department memo: In 2023, an operative linked to the TTP was apprehended surveilling U.S. diplomatic facilities in Islamabad. These revelations underscore what many analysts already suspect—the TTP is mutating from a parochial insurgency into a globally aspirant jihadist network.

The group’s resurgence coincides directly with the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul in 2021. The fall of the U.S.-backed Afghan government created permissive conditions for the TTP to regroup, rearm, and relocate. By January, United Nations monitors had documented at least seven TTP training camps straddling the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Some are allegedly stocked with U.S.-made weaponry left behind during the chaotic American withdrawal. This renewed operational capacity has triggered a spike in cross-border violence, with Pakistani authorities attributing 48 attacks to the TTP in 2024 alone—including a suicide bombing in Islamabad that killed six people, two of them American aid workers.

Islamabad has long argued that the international community has ignored its warnings at great peril. Since 2001, terrorist violence has claimed the lives of more than 80,000 Pakistani civilians and security forces while inflicting over $150 billion in economic losses. “We’ve been paying in blood while the world looked away,” Pakistan’s Ambassador to Washington, Masood Khan, told the AP. His comments reflect a growing sense of betrayal in Islamabad—particularly over the West’s muted recognition of Pakistan’s counterterrorism sacrifices, which have included mass internal displacements to dismantle militant safe havens.

Now, the Trump administration faces renewed scrutiny over its South Asia policy. Inside the White House, senior officials are reportedly revisiting the decision to suspend $300 million in military aid to Pakistan—a move originally justified on the grounds of insufficient counterterrorism cooperation. While the funding was halted in 2023, voices within the national security establishment are urging a reassessment, arguing that restoring the aid could significantly enhance Pakistan’s capacity to target entrenched TTP strongholds. “The ATA report finally validates what Pakistan’s intelligence services have been saying for years,” said Aki Peritz, a former CIA counterterrorism analyst. “But strategic partnerships require sustained commitment, not just periodic acknowledgments.”

At the heart of the crisis lies the Taliban’s murky relationship with the TTP. While Kabul’s rulers publicly deny offering sanctuary to militant factions, United Nations investigators have amassed evidence suggesting that Taliban commanders have provided both safe passage and arms to TTP units. This duplicity has had real consequences. In March 2025, a series of Pakistani airstrikes against suspected TTP targets in Afghanistan’s Khost province sparked retaliatory artillery fire, leaving at least a dozen security personnel dead on both sides of the border. “The Taliban want to have it both ways,” said Asfandyar Mir, a U.S. Institute of Peace senior expert. “They need international legitimacy but won’t alienate their hardline base by cracking down on ideological allies.”

European intelligence services, too, are raising red flags. Germany’s BND issued a warning in February 2025 about TTP efforts to recruit among Pakistani diaspora communities in Scandinavia. At least three Swedish nationals have reportedly traveled to Afghanistan for training. The group’s messaging, analysts say, is shifting. Their propaganda now squarely targets “Western crusaders,” said Rita Katz, head of the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist media. These moves suggest a deliberate pivot toward global jihad.

Financing remains a critical vulnerability. According to one U.S. official, the Treasury Department is preparing sanctions against three Dubai-based hawala operators suspected of funneling donations to the TTP. Still, international coordination has stalled. China continues to block U.N. Security Council attempts to enact broader sanctions, citing concerns about exacerbating unrest in Pakistan’s volatile Balochistan province.

Back in Washington, momentum is building behind bipartisan legislation that would designate the TTP as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Such a move would empower U.S. authorities to enforce tighter financial restrictions and impose travel bans. “Every day we delay is a day the TTP grows stronger,” warned Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. His warning echoes a growing consensus within the counterterrorism community: the U.S. must not repeat the strategic blind spots that preceded 9/11.

For Pakistan’s military brass, the U.S. assessment brings a measure of vindication—but little relief. “We’ve dismantled their networks before, but they regenerate,” said General Syed Asim Munir, Chief of the Army Staff, in an interview with Dawn. TTP membership has swelled to an estimated 6,000 fighters since 2020. Unlike in the past, the group now favors decentralized operations, embracing “lone wolf” attacks over coordinated offensives, according to the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies.

The next phase in this shadow war hinges on whether Washington and Islamabad can forge a durable alliance against an evolving and increasingly emboldened enemy. The Taliban, unwilling—or perhaps unable—to rein in the TTP, remains an unreliable partner. And with the group’s ambitions expanding far beyond the Afghan-Pakistani frontier, U.S. policymakers face a familiar but urgent challenge: preempting a threat before it metastasizes. As Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) cautioned in recent hearings: “History won’t forgive us if we ignore this twice.”