evidence: In March last year, bne IntelliNews reported on concerns that Afghanistan-based terrorist groups could destabilise Tajikistan and Central Asia in the wake of the US exit from Afghanistan that took place the previous August. And as the US completed that exit, this publication explored how Afghanistan was set to attract jihadists from far and wide, with the development also a threat to China. China's Xinjiang Province has a 92-kilometre-long mountainous border with Afghanistan at the end of the Wakhan Corridor, a narrow strip of territory in Badakhshan Province of Afghanistan that also separates Tajikistan from Pakistan. [...] After the US departure from Afghanistan, the Kremlin responded to the Taliban takeover of the country by beefing up the largest permanent military base it has abroad, namely its base in post-Soviet Tajikistan. It has made some efforts to negotiate understandings with the Taliban—a Taliban delegation to Moscow was last year allowed to form an official presence there, for instance—but it is not clear much progress in building relations has been made. Also since the US packed up and left Afghanistan, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon has given several warnings that thousands of militants were located near his country’s border with Afghanistan, stating in January last year: "Overall, according to the intelligence of Tajikistan, there are over 40 camps and terrorist training centres in Afghanistan’s northeastern provinces, which house over 6,000 militants."