Brian M Downing
Following successes in Syria and Iraq in 2014, ISIL set up cells in Afghanistan comprising mostly Pakistani Taliban. They called themselves the “Islamist State-Khorasan” (IS-K), using an ancient name for the Central Asian expanse with mythic meaning in apocalyptic writings. It’s in Khorasan that jihadis will gather, win great victories, and restore unity.
Conquest of northern Iraq gave IS-K a magical aura and jihadi groups in eastern Afghanistan such as al Qaeda, Lashkar-i-Taiba, and the Islamist Movement of Uzbekistan eagerly joined IS-K. The aura was enhanced by generous funding from the Gulf region, perhaps including the House of Saud itself. These bands, the ISIL leadership hoped, would attract more and more recruits, spread across the chaotic country, then drive north into the ‘Stans.
Expansion was limited though, and when positions in the Levant collapsed, many recruits returned to their old groups. IS-K became a couple thousand loyalists in bands and cells in the north and east. Their importance was slight, until they struck the Kabul airport and killed several dozen people, including at least thirteen Americans.
More such attacks are likely. IS-K does not want the Taliban to control Khorasan and there are like-minded, though completely different groups, that may weaken the Taliban, too.
Strategy
The IS-K attack was directed partly on American personnel but it signals a broader ambition that conflicts with the Taliban. Fresh from victory, the Taliban want to build a competent government across Afghanistan which can develop the country. IS-K sees Afghanistan as divinely ordained for its mission and a Taliban government – any government – is in the way.
IS-K sees states, from Morocco to SE Asia, as obstacles to unity in Islam. It wants to break down existing states throughout the Islamic world, rally forces amid the ashes, and establish a new caliphate with fire and sword. It failed in the Levant but events above the Durand Line are offering a new opportunity. Better to undermine Taliban power now.
Other opponents of the Taliban
In and of itself, IS-K is too small to gravely weaken the Taliban. However, freelance jihadis are heading to Afghanistan and are more likely attracted to heroic fighting alongside IS-K than mundane policing for the Taliban. IS-K isn’t the only group that opposes Taliban consolidation. There are others who though hostile to IS-K and unwilling to cooperate with it, may help create disorder for their own ends – autonomy, vengeance, honor, or full defeat.
Warlords and militias in the north want to establish autonomous regions. The Tajiks in the Panjshir Valley are one such group. Uzbeks and other Tajiks are elsewhere in the north.
Former soldiers want to exact vengeance and regain honor through resistance. They may either head for northern resistance forces or start killing off Taliban troops piecemeal in cities and towns across the country.
Many Pashtun tribes despise the Taliban, fear its rule, and may mount low-level resistance points.
The Hazaras, a Shia people of central Afghanistan, face grave danger from Sunni Taliban zealots. Many have served in Iranian militias in Syria.
Women across the country acquired an appreciation for the freedoms Western forces gave them. They may have learned in school that Algerian women of the FLN concealed weapons under traditional Islamic attire when fighting French rule.
Taliban reprisals against opponents will be swift and cruel and disproportionate. Their soldiers probably outnumber the armed opponents but Afghan resistance groups can be persistent. Reprisals may draw new recruits and cause dismay in some Taliban fighters. Tthey didn’t fight foreigners long and hard to become despised oppressors of their own people.
The Taliban itself may contribute to disorder. The group has to transform itself from a decentralized movement comprising disparate tribes and peoples into a centralized state, making and enforcing binding decisions. It has internationalist factions, rivalrous commanders, and longstanding shura members who differ on where the movement and country should go.
Mullah Omar had charismatic authority that held the Taliban together in the 90s. It’s not clear Baradar or anyone else can do that.
China as catalyst
Beijing has long been purchasing Afghanistan’s natural resources, building extraction routes, and sending commodities home or to world markets. IS-K may opt to attack Chinese personnel and assets. Baluch separatists in nearby Pakistan have been doing this for years. That would bring a measure of chaos, forestall development and consolidation, and give itself a useful if misleading nationalist facade.
The mujahideen expelled the Russians, the Taliban prevailed over the Americans. Warlords, militias, disbanded soldiers, Hazaras, and women can present themselves as the latest in that tradition. IS-K can opportunistically and temporarily adopt the same trappings.
© 2021 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to Susan Ganosellis.