Twenty-Five Years After 9/11, Afghanistan’s Unfinished Crisis Still Displaces Its People—and Endangers the World

Displaced International honors the victims of September 11 and calls for renewed international action to ensure that Afghanistan never again becomes a sanctuary for terrorism—or a country its own people must flee to survive.

Twenty-five years ago today, al-Qaeda carried out the deadliest terrorist attack in United States history, killing 2,977 people in New York, at the Pentagon, and near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Displaced International remembers the victims, their families, the survivors, first responders, and all those whose lives were forever changed by that tragedy.

The attacks were planned by al-Qaeda while its leaders enjoyed sanctuary under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Yet the Afghan people must never be conflated with those who exploited their country. Afghans were among the earliest and longest-suffering victims of the terrorism, extremist rule, foreign interference, conflict, and state failure that ultimately allowed Afghanistan to become a base for international terrorism.

The lesson of September 11 is therefore inseparable from the experience of forced displacement: when peace collapses, violent extremists gain ground, people are driven from their homes, and the consequences rarely remain within national borders.

“We cannot fully honor the victims of September 11 while forgetting the country from which the threat emerged—or the Afghan people who first suffered under it,” said Ambassador Ashraf Haidari, Founder & President of Displaced International. “Remembrance must become resolve: Afghanistan must never again be a sanctuary for terrorism or a place its own people must flee simply to survive.”

From International Solidarity to Hope and Return

Following the attacks, the United States and its partners responded through collective self-defense. The United Nations Security Council condemned the attacks and recognized the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense, while NATO invoked Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty for the first time in its history.

The fall of the Taliban was followed by the UN-supported Bonn Process, which laid the foundation for rebuilding Afghanistan’s political institutions. International engagement helped Afghans establish a constitution, hold elections, educate millions of girls and boys, expand independent media, strengthen civil society, and rebuild essential national institutions.

These gains were incomplete and often fragile. Corruption, weak governance, civilian casualties, regional interference, and the failure to dismantle terrorist sanctuaries across Afghanistan’s borders undermined progress. Nevertheless, millions of Afghans believed that a safer and more hopeful future had become possible.

Their actions demonstrated that hope in the clearest possible way. According to UNHCR, nearly six million Afghan refugees returned home after 2002, including 5.3 million assisted by the agency.

This historic return challenged a persistent misconception about refugees: people generally do not abandon their homes, communities, and countries by choice. They flee when remaining becomes more dangerous than leaving. When Afghans saw the possibility of security, education, employment, and accountable government, millions returned to rebuild their lives and their country.

The Drivers of Displacement Have Returned

That hope began to fade as insecurity intensified, international attention declined, and the withdrawal of foreign forces approached. Afghans increasingly feared that the institutions built after 2001 would not survive. Their fears became reality when the Taliban forcibly retook Kabul in August 2021.

Five years later, the underlying drivers of Afghan displacement have returned in disturbingly familiar forms: unaccountable extremist rule, political and social exclusion, fear of persecution, terrorist activity, economic insecurity, climate pressures, and the systematic denial of the rights of women and girls.

Afghanistan is now the only country in the world where girls are prohibited from attending secondary school and university. UNICEF reported in August 2026 that more than 2.6 million girls had been denied secondary education since the Taliban takeover. Women have been progressively excluded from employment, education, public life, freedom of movement, and much of the humanitarian response.

At the same time, terrorist organizations remain active in Afghanistan and the region. UN monitoring continues to raise concerns about al-Qaeda, ISIS-K, Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan, and other armed groups. The international community should avoid unsupported exaggeration, but it must also resist complacency. As Ambassador Haidari warned on the previous anniversary, the convergence of terrorism, repression, economic fragility, and humanitarian suffering has consequences far beyond Afghanistan’s borders.

Afghans are again searching for safety abroad, while millions of others are being returned to conditions that cannot support their sustainable reintegration. In June 2026, the United Nations reported that nearly 5.9 million Afghans had returned from neighboring countries since 2023, many under pressure and with few assets or livelihood opportunities. These arrivals have increased Afghanistan’s population by more than 10 percent within a severely strained economy.

The same UN briefing estimated that 21.9 million people—approximately 45 percent of Afghanistan’s population—needed humanitarian assistance in 2026. Returning people in such numbers without protection, preparation, and reintegration support risks creating new poverty, internal displacement, dangerous onward movement, and regional instability.

Refugees Are the Consequence—Failed Peace Is the Cause

On this anniversary, Displaced International reiterates a central truth: the world does not have a refugee problem; it has a failure-of-peace problem.

Humanitarian aid saves lives, and refugee protection remains indispensable. But neither can substitute for the political action required to address why people are forced to flee.

Afghanistan’s crisis will not be resolved by containing Afghan refugees in neighboring countries, forcing them back into danger, or gradually normalizing Taliban rule without meaningful change. Nor will isolation alone produce a peaceful and inclusive Afghanistan. What is required is coordinated, principled, and sustained international diplomacy centered on the rights and aspirations of the Afghan people.

Displaced International calls on the United States, the United Nations, NATO allies, regional governments, and other international partners to:

• Prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a sanctuary for organizations that threaten Afghans, neighboring countries, and international security.
• Withhold unconditional recognition of the Taliban until measurable progress is achieved on human rights, inclusive governance, counterterrorism commitments, and the restoration of the fundamental rights of women and girls.
• Revitalize an inclusive, Afghan-owned and UN-supported political process involving women, civil society, displaced Afghans, ethnic and religious communities, democratic stakeholders, and other representatives of Afghanistan’s diverse society.
• Protect Afghan refugees and asylum seekers, uphold the principle of non-refoulement, stop involuntary returns to danger, and expand safe pathways for family reunification, education, employment, humanitarian admission, and resettlement.
• Sustain support for Afghan women, educators, human-rights defenders, independent media, civil society, and displaced-led organizations working inside and outside Afghanistan.
• Advance a regional compact focused on noninterference, counterterrorism, refugee protection, economic connectivity, water and climate cooperation, and the conditions necessary for safe, voluntary, and dignified return.

Let Remembrance Lead to Responsibility

The 25th anniversary of September 11 must be more than a remembrance of what happened. It must also be a reckoning with what remains unresolved.

Afghanistan cannot again be ignored until another crisis forces the world to pay attention. Refugees cannot be treated as the problem when their displacement is a warning that peace, rights, and accountable governance have failed.

The most meaningful tribute to the victims of September 11 is sustained action to prevent terrorism, protect those forced to flee, uphold the rights of Afghan women and girls, and help create an Afghanistan at peace with itself, its neighbors, and the world.

That is the unfinished responsibility of September 11—and the work must begin again with urgency.