Daily Times

Now that the cat is out of the bag with a black face and continues to inflict fear and savagery on the people of Afghanistan, the Afghan national army commanders are in deep trouble if they do not catch the stray cat safely. In fact, the black cat is experienced, violent, well-trained and educated compared to the corrupt army commanders and Taliban fighters who have been unable to conquer a single province during the last 13 years of the war on terrorism in Afghanistan. The mystery of the presence of Islamic State (IS) in the country is quite complicated as army commanders still view it as a new Taliban menace. However, the fact of the matter is that IS has recently claimed responsibility for the Jalalabad and Badakhshan attacks.
Contradictions in the statements of army and police commanders, and the presidential palace about the existence of IS in the country have created a new riddle. The Afghan army denies the presence of IS in Afghanistan while President Ashraf Ghani conceded its presence in Afghanistan before the US Congress: “IS is already sending advance guards to southern and western Afghanistan to test our vulnerabilities.” During his Iranian visit, Mr Ghani also mentioned the presence of IS in his country. However, in his India visit, Mr Ghani warned of the IS threat to regional security: “With all apologies to Microsoft, if al Qaeda was Window One, IS is Window Five. Terrorism is fast changing its ecology and morphology, and its communication strategies.”
The role of India in embodying IS cannot be ruled out as the national security advisor of India, Ajit Kumar Doval, succeeded in re-engaging the Pakistani Taliban by establishing their link with the leadership of IS in Afghanistan. In India, according to reports, the Syrian envoy confirmed that Doval had retrieved the data of IS militants from Syrian authorities. Reports also confirmed that Mr Doval had also organised a meeting between TTP and IS leaders in the Indian consulate in Kandahar. On November 21, 2014, a news report highlighted an interview of the Syrian ambassador to India, Riad Kamel Abbas, saying that his country shared data of IS with India through Ajit Kumar Doval. Now, it is quite clear that India is a part of the game. The contact between Mr Dovel and IS leaders raises serious questions, while political observers ask whether India wants to use IS against Pakistan or China.
The re-engagement of the Taliban and their allegiance to IS has given a tough time to the Afghan army commanders. On April 28, 2015, the Long War Journal reported that IS’s Khurasan chapter had established training camps in Logar province. Last week, thousands of IS terrorists attacked several districts of Kunduz province. The governor of Kunduz told journalists that IS had taken control of several villages in the province. However, the IS’s recent video of Kunduz attacks exposed the false claims of army commanders and showed its fighters in control of Afghan security forces, outposts, captured security personnel, vehicles and weapons seized during the fighting. The video also showed several US-supplied Humvees used by the Afghan army and 150 Ford pickup trucks used by the Afghan police that had been taken during the fighting. The video claims that IS fighters captured assault rifles, machine guns and an assortment of ammunition.
Moreover, the chief of the Kunduz provincial council told reporters that more than 2,000 Taliban fighters had attacked the district of Imam Sahib where the government had lost contact with more than 500 soldiers. The Taliban claimed that their forces had killed dozens of Afghan soldiers, police and Arbakis or private militiamen, including top-ranking officers and commanders, and that they had captured 55 security personnel. Afghan interior minister, General Noorul Haq Ulomi, accused Afghan police commanders for their tacit support to IS’s fight against the Afghan army. On May 3, 2015, the Pajhwok news agency reported that the Taliban had captured 13 check posts in Badakhshan province while the Afghan parliament warned that the writ of the government did not exist in 31 provinces.
On April 27, 2015, senators blasted the unity government over insecurity in the country. “If the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) does not work, it must be terminated,” Senator Gulalai Akbari said. Moreover, the governor of Paktika province accused National Security Advisor Mr Muhammad Haneef Atmar of providing $ 200,000 to the IS leadership in Bermal district while, according to a New York Times report (May 2, 2015), an Afghan army soldier, whose left leg had been blown off by a bomb in Lashkar Gah district of Helmand province, had sold his 11-year-old daughter, Noor Bibi, for only $ 3,000 to treat his wounds. Conversely, on March 25, 2015, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani abruptly showed sympathy with the Taliban and said, “Some members of the Taliban have legitimate grievances given the torture and ill treatment they have suffered and it is necessary to find ways to apologise and heal national wounds.” In response to his statement, the inspector general Kadahar police, Abdul Raziq, accused the unity government by saying that the president and his cabinet members were working on the dismemberment plan of the country.
On April 27, 2015, Afghan parliamentarians also accused acting governors of various provinces of involvement in facilitating IS forces against the Afghan army. They voiced concerns over the alleged collusion of acting governors and district chiefs with militants. “I swear that the acting governors and district chiefs are involved in promoting terrorism and I have enough proof of that,” an MP from Balkh province, Mr Rahman Rahmani, said. Afghan senators also repudiated the unity government for facilitating thousands of IS fighters in destabilising the country. “Thousands of unknown rebels enter the western Herat province from the other side of the Durand Line every day to go to the northern provinces and disturb security there,” said Ghulam Faruq Majroh, an MP from Herat province. Another MP from Takhar province said that more than 1,500 Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) fighters are arriving in the province on a daily basis. I hope the Afghan army will respond to the spring operation of the Taliban and IS with a strong resolve because a good year is determined by its spring.

The writer is author of Punjabi Taliban and can be reached at zai.musakhan222@gmail.com