The most recent pattern of intense attacks by Islamic State (IS) and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan has put the credibility of the Afghan unity government and its security forces into question. IS has become a potential threat, benefiting from the changing loyalties of ethnic groups in the north and sectarian groups in the south and southwestern parts of the country. The Ghani-Abdullah government (without a cabinet) is disunited on the national counterterrorism strategy and stands at the crossroads. Both the chief executive and the president have different political priorities, which possibly caused their unsystematic approach to the ongoing, unbridled wave of terrorism.
The international media recently carried stories on the presence of IS and its recruitment centres in Afghanistan and Pakistan, funded by the Taliban, sectarian groups, drug smugglers and radicalised business firms. This terrorist group also poses a bigger challenge for the Afghan and Pakistani security forces. In September 2014, more than 800 members of the IS terrorist group stormed the Ajristan district of Ghazni province, killing 100 people, including the Afghan national army soldiers.
The IS, later on, established its headquarters in Ander district where it recruits male and female Afghans for the purpose of suicide attacks. The Afghan unity government is in deep crisis and worried that this terrorist group might turn its arms on Afghanistan’s weak security forces under the IS’s banner. The president has already banned new appointments in the Afghan army and police department, which causes more riddles. The Afghan army is shrinking and increasingly ramshackle by the day, while the police has turned to drug trafficking as police personnel have not been paid their salaries for the last six months. A police officer from Helmand told this scribe that his force has refused to defend the country without salary. The police continue to sell their arms to Taliban and criminal militias.
They are in trouble. Their children suffer starvation and are living in rented houses. This inadvisable treatment of the police and Afghan army by the unity government serves the interests of IS. Now, after the Ajristan massacre, there are speculations that IS has spread in Afghanistan and Pakistan. On November 18, the Daily Mail reported that a splinter group of Pakistan’s Taliban pledged support to IS. The Jundullah group also announced its allegiance to the group. “They (IS) are our brothers, whatever plan they have we will support them,” said Jundullah spokesman Marwat. In Afghanistan’s Baghlan province, the police arrested six Jundullah militants.
The Daish group is also in contact with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba in Punjab. On December 11, 2014, former Interior Minister of Pakistan Mr Rehman Malik told a local news channel that IS had established recruitment centres in Gujranwala and Bahawalpur districts of Punjab province. The wall-chalking campaign and leaflets prompted fears about the terrorist group making inroads in the country. According to the leaked government circular in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, IS recruited more than 10,000 to 12,000 fighters for the next sectarian war in Pakistan. In Kabul, on December 8, 2014, Reuters reported that a 25-year-old student from Kabul University had vowed to join the mujahideen of IS. “When hundreds of foreigners, both men and women, leave their comfortable lives and embrace Daish, then why not us?” he asked.
The IS is trying to make inroads into Afghan educational institutions to retrieve the support of students. However, on the same day, the BBC reported that the Lal Masjid’s seminary had announced its allegiance to IS. On December 13, 2014, in an interview with a local television channel, the chief of the Red Mosque, Maulana Abdul Aziz, confirmed the video message of his seminary students. In November 2014, Pakistan’s National Counter Terrorism Agency (NACTA) warned that IS was spreading like a viral disease across the country while the group’s leader, Abu Bakkar al-Baghdadi, appointed an Afghan writer, Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost, as chief of its Khurrasan chapter and started gearing up to muster the support of former jihadists. Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost (an Afghan national) was arrested by Pakistani agencies in Peshawar after the 9/11 terrorist attack in the US. After his release, he wrote a book (in the Pashto language) against the brutalities and torture tactics of Pakistani agencies against detainees. No sooner was his book released by a local publisher in Peshawar, that the ISI arrested him again and he disappeared for a long time. Later on he was shifted to Guantanamo for three years.
The Taliban and IS killed scores in Kabul last week. The unity government is in deep water and does not know how to tackle this continuous spilling of blood in the country. The issue of law and order has becom very serious. The Afghan army and the police are unable to defend their country. Drug trafficking is a profitable business. Kidnapping, prostitution, sexual harassment, rape and the involvement of ministers, secretaries and members of parliament in these criminal businesses is a matter of great concern.
According to a new US report, there are record levels of opium production in the country, which is now a three billion dollar industry with much of the profit going to the Taliban and Afghan parliamentarians. Parliamentarians, the police, ministers, secret agencies and the national army are not interested in stabilising their country. The Soviet-influenced Afghan intelligence agencies have no roots in the south, east and southwest of the country. They are unable to collect true intelligence information from 50 percent area of Afghanistan. They are corrupt, jingoist, incompetent and facilitate terrorist networks. In view of the Taliban’s increasingly bold attacks in Kabul, last Sunday, the president of the unity government angrily criticised the failure of intelligence, and announced reviving the old sovietised intelligence infrastructure. However, Pakistan’s long sustained policy of appeasing proxies and jihadists also caused instability in Afghanistan. Terrorism operations have been legitimised in the country by Pakistan, which supports the ‘good’ Taliban and hammers the ‘bad’ Taliban.
The writer is the author of Punjabi Taliban and can be reached at [email protected]