Daily Times

The Afghan military chief, General Sher Mohammad Karimi, apparently became the first foreign leader to preside over the passing out parade at the Pakistan Military Academy, Kakul last week. General Karimi emphasised the need for “sincere” and robust counterterrorism cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and advised caution against letting the “historic opportunity” of defeating terrorists — whom he described as the “common enemy” – slip through. He emphasised that the two countries now faced a much graver threat from “non-state actors” than ever before. Just as the Afghan military chief was delivering his speech, a suicide bomber blew himself and at least 36 innocent Afghans to smithereens in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. Over 100 more were injured, some critically. The Afghan security agencies prevented additional carnage when they destroyed another bomb in a controlled detonation. Hapless Afghans had gathered to collect their salaries at a branch of the Kabul Bank. The heartrending sights and sounds of the Jalalabad carnage seemed to tarnish the imagery and rhetoric coming out of Kakul.
Curiously, Zabiullah Mujahid — a moniker used by the Afghan Taliban’s spokesperson(s) — swiftly denied any role in Saturday’s slaughter, which otherwise had all the hallmarks of the so-called ‘spectacular’ attacks the Taliban and its Haqqani network affiliate have carried out over the years, including the February 19, 2011 assault on another branch of the Kabul Bank in Jalalabad. Instead, responsibility for the butchery was accepted by the former spokesman of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Shahidullah Shahid, in the name of Da’esh, the vernacular acronym for Islamic State (IS). This deadly development has raised concerns about whether IS has eventually mustered enough terrorist muscle in Afghanistan to pull off something so gruesome. That IS could not find even a single Afghan to claim responsibility for its first large-scale brutality inside Afghanistan and has relied on the Pakistani Shahidullah Shahid, however, immediately raised questions about whether IS has indeed arrived in Afghanistan and yet another rebranding of cross-border jihadist terrorism was underway. After all, large sections of the mujahideen legions raised against the Soviets were herded into what have been known as the Taliban for the last two decades.
What was rather shocking was that Afghan President Dr Ashraf Ghani also jumped on the blame IS bandwagon saying that “the Taliban did not claim responsibility but Da’esh claimed responsibility”. What made Dr Ghani throw both caution and due diligence to the wind is not clear but one possibility remains that pinning the massacre on IS allows him to (continue to) pursue negotiations with the Taliban, which otherwise would certainly have been questioned by other Afghan politicians. The Afghan president played up IS presence in Afghanistan during his recent US visit too, saying that his country has significance for IS as, according to them, the “End of Times battle” will be fought there. While he is right on the importance of Khurasan, i.e. Afghanistan plus some surrounding regions, in millenarian IS and Taliban jihadist lore, the mythical final battle is supposed to start in Dabiq (present day Syria), the city after which IS has named its propaganda periodical. The Afghan president just running with the jihadist claim that IS carried out the Jalalabad attack is fraught with twofold risk: a) losing sight of the real and present danger that the Taliban and its affiliates like the Haqqani network pose, and b) the IS decoy affords tremendous plausible deniability to the Taliban and their patrons who can and will continue lethal attacks that strengthen their bargaining position vis-à-vis the Afghan government, without taking any flak from the public and international powers.
Dr Ashraf Ghani’s own deputy intelligence chief, Mr Hesamuddin Hesam, took the alleged IS claim with a grain of salt and told the Afghan parliament that “there are two types of IS: one that operates in Syria and one that is in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, they are the same old Taliban who have swapped their white flag with black and have become more swift and deadly.” The former Afghan intelligence chief, Mr Amrullah Saleh, was much more blunt when he tweeted, “By attributing the 18/04/15 massacre at Jalalabad to IS, Pak and Taliban can’t cleanse themselves and fool Afghans. They are culprits and guilty.” In another tweeted message, Mr Saleh squarely criticised what he called President Ghani’s “appeasement policy” towards Pakistan and the Taliban, and pinned the blame on Pakistan’s intelligence apparatus. Mr Saleh is not alone in his criticism of Mr Ghani’s policies as several Afghan political leaders are becoming increasingly antsy with what they perceive as their president’s misplaced trust in their eastern neighbour’s leadership, which has failed to show convincingly that it has meaningfully restrained the jihadist elements operating from across the Durand Line.
A less likely possibility is that elements of the Taliban wish to sabotage the newfound bonhomie between the Pak-Afghan leadership. The exponential rise in Taliban violence from Helmand in the Afghan south to as far as Faryab in the northwest indicates, however, that the jihadists are mounting cohesive and militarily well-planned attacks. The Jalalabad massacre bearing the Haqqani network signature was no exception. Even before the name IS ever popped up, the Taliban and its affiliates have at times denied responsibility for their vicious attacks in which the civilian toll was very high; the current instance would likely turn out to be just that. Dr Ashraf Ghani will perhaps realise sooner rather than later that the black flags of IS are actually the red herring that serve the Taliban and their patrons very well in the time of flux and when all, especially the international powers, expect the peace talks to go through. It is becoming increasingly clear that, notwithstanding its claims to the contrary, Pakistan has not been able to nudge the Afghan Taliban to the negotiating table, which raises serious questions about both its will and capacity to do so.
Is there any likelihood that ‘IS central’ will eventually take hold in Afghanistan? Barring an unforeseen sudden collapse of the Afghan state and its national security forces, the answer is no! At the present time there exists neither a command or control structure of IS in Afghanistan nor any proven connection of the copycat groups of that terrorist monstrosity hounding Iraq and Syria. Dr Ashraf Ghani allowing — indeed magnifying manifold — the claims of a virtually non-existent entity for a ruthless terrorist attack imperils not only the already beleaguered Afghan people but also his own political credibility. The Afghan president asking the real IS to rise also runs the risk of Da’esh in Afghanistan becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hopefully, the Afghan leader will vet such claims in future before lending them credence.

The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com and he tweets @mazdaki