IS-K violence could force West into unlikely alliance with Taliban

The decades-long conflict in Afghanistan was always far more than a simple case of the Taliban versus the Afghan government, or a U.S.-led “war on terror.”

This is because Afghanistan is not a single country in the sense of a legitimate system accepted by the vast majority. Beyond the capital Kabul, it is more a mosaic of local areas with factions — among them the Taliban — seeking rule and profit.

The suicide bombing of the crowd outside Hamid Karzai International Airport by the Islamic State-Khorasan Province on Thursday, killing up to 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops, highlights the threats presented by these armed groups.

The Taliban will try to establish a national government. With their radical interpretation of Islam and politics, they are likely to continue violence, repression and denial of rights to many sections of Afghan society. But as demonstrated by the IS-K violence, the Taliban’s control of Kabul and also other parts of Afghanistan is not secure.

To understand that lack of control — and the instability and insecurity that are likely to persist — one has to begin with the relationships between the Taliban and other groups, including IS-K and the Haqqani network.

Islamic State Khorasan

The Islamic State’s lightning advance across Iraq and Syria in 2014 — and its declaration of a “caliphate” — spawned affiliates. These groups promoted the ideological line of, and received assistance from, the core of IS — but developed from local conditions.

One was IS-K, established in January 2015 and naming itself after “Khorasan,” part of an Islamic empire which stretched from Iran to the western Himalayas from the 6th century. The group consists of local militants and former Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, pushing an even more radical ideology and implementation, as well as some former al-Qaida members. Spanning the Afghan-Pakistan border, IS-K’s center is in eastern Afghanistan in the Nangarhar and Kunar provinces.

While the Taliban sought to take control of Afghanistan, through military operations and then political talks, IS-K has sought to recruit members by generating publicity through deadly attacks on civilian targets. Their targets have included protest rallies, schools providing education for girls and a Kabul maternity ward.

Afghan security forces and U.S. aerial operations, including the “mother of all bombs” in April 2017, crippled IS-K. And beyond Afghanistan, the U.S. killing of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in northern Syria in October 2019 was a further blow. By 2020, IS-K’s estimated membership was reduced to between 1,500 and 2,200.

But a new commander, Shahab al-Muhajir, energized the group with operations such as an August 2020 attack on a prison in Jalalabad, some 62 miles west of Kabul, which freed hundreds of fighters. There was also as an assassination attempt on Vice President Amrullah Saleh, which left 10 people dead.

Al-Qaida, Haqqani network

When Western media and pundits report on the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, they often unsurprisingly invoke the specter of al-Qaida. A U.N. report in June said al-Qaida members are active in 15 of 34 Afghan provinces. But in both operational significance and political authority, the organization is a shell of its 2001 version.

Soon after 9/11, al-Qaida was pushed into northwest Pakistan, with Osama bin Laden finally killed by U.S. special forces in 2011. Other senior leaders have been slain or captured. While Bin Laden’s successor Ayman al-Zawahiri is thought to be in Afghanistan, he is muted and said to be in poor health.