The Russian invasion of Ukraine is now in its second month. Europe is facing a large-scale refugee and security crisis. Russia is coming under intense economic pressure from sanctions. And countries in the Middle East and across much of Africa are concerned about how the fighting will impact their imports of Ukrainian food. But even with this focus on Ukraine, there is another geopolitical matter that cannot be ignored: Afghanistan. Eight months after the Taliban took power, Afghanistan still faces an acute humanitarian crisis. The Taliban have been utterly incompetent when it comes to governing and they are not capable of handling the humanitarian crisis facing the country. The UN claims that 97 percent of Afghans could be living in poverty by the middle of this year. According to a report published by the Observer Research Foundation in India, 11 million people in Afghanistan are experiencing food insecurity. It does not seem that the US, or the wider international community for that matter, has a strategy to confront the humanitarian crisis. Among American policy circles, it is as if Afghanistan barely exists. President Joe Biden did not mention the country once during his recent State of the Union speech before Congress, for example. Right now, all eyes are on Ukraine. However, the situation for the international community is not straightforward. If money and resources are given directly to the Taliban, it is likely that most of it will be siphoned off. The US State Department announced this week that it would provide $204 million in humanitarian aid “to help the people of Afghanistan” and that this funding would be funneled through international aid organizations, but it is not clear that any aid group has the freedom and ability to operate effectively in Afghanistan. Another crisis that will have a long-term impact on Afghanistan is the lack of female education. When the Taliban swept back into power in August last year, it banned girls over the age of 12 from attending school. They later relented and announced that, by the Nowruz holiday on March 23, girls would be back in the classroom. Girls across the country gathered their books and backpacks on that date, only to be told they were not welcome. Now, two weeks after the Taliban’s promised date for girls returning to school, they remain out of the classroom. The deteriorating humanitarian situation and the pending food crisis will only drive more people into the arms of extremists. Luke Coffey Finally, the threat from terrorism coming from Afghanistan has not declined. The commander of US Central Command, Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, last month told Congress during his annual update that Daesh and Al-Qaeda “are seeking to exploit a reduction of US counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan to reinvigorate their adherents and increase their ability to plot and direct external attacks.” He also stated that the deteriorating humanitarian situation and the pending food crisis will only drive more people into the arms of extremists. At the time of America’s retreat from Afghanistan last year, assurances were made by the Biden administration that an “over the horizon” counterterrorism capability could strike at emerging terrorist threats in the country from bases outside the region. McKenzie told Congress that “conducting counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan from ‘over the horizon’ remains difficult, but not impossible.” However, since no details have been provided about how such a capability could work in practice, his claim that it is “not impossible” raises eyebrows. Eight months since American forces left, there is no indication that the US has the ability to launch these long-range strikes and there is every indication that terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda and Daesh are increasingly active in the country. As Afghanistan enters spring and then heads into summer, observers should keep an eye out for moves made by the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan. The NRF is led by the capable and astute Ahmad Massoud, the son of the former resistance commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, who fought against Soviet forces and the Taliban in the 1980s and 1990s. Immediately after the Taliban took Kabul last year, thousands of fighters sought shelter in Afghanistan’s mountainous Panjshir Valley, about 100 km north of the capital. The Taliban immediately launched an attack on the region, but the resistance fighters were able to use the winter weather conditions and the region’s topography as protection. Now that the NRF has seemingly survived the winter, expect it to start making moves against the Taliban in the predominantly Tajik regions in the north of the country. So as the world focuses on Ukraine, there is a lot happening in Afghanistan. As the situation continues to deteriorate, the effects will be felt beyond its border and even across the region. It seems unlikely that the international community has the ability, or even the desire, to deal with more than one major crisis at a time. As has been the case for more than 40 years, the Afghan people will continue to be the ones that suffer. Luke Coffey is the director of the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy at the Heritage Foundation. Twitter: @LukeDCoffey