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| The IS-K challenge |
MANY analysts had
predicted long before the Afghan Taliban took over Kabul that Afghanistan would
become a major security and foreign policy challenge for Pakistan. While most
in Pakistan are currently busy discussing the political and strategic
advantages and disadvantages of the Taliban regime, there is currently no
discourse on the socio-cultural impact of the emerging Afghan situation on
Pakistani society. For example, the ongoing fighting between the Khorasan
Chapter of the Islamic States (IS-K) and the Afghan Taliban is not just a
conflict between two rival militant and ideological forces; it also reflects
sectarian, ethnic and class divisions in Afghan society and has already begun
to affect Pakistan as well.
After signing the Doha deal
with the US in February 2020, IS-K announced a long war against the Taliban and
has since intensified its attacks within Afghanistan. The terrorist group has
alleged over 90 attacks in Afghanistan since September 18, including some major
ones, and about 85 percent of those attacks were against the Taliban. In the
end, the Taliban also launched a deadly crackdown on IS-K, but Salafists in
Afghanistan complain that this is an attack on their beliefs and accuse the
Taliban of arresting and killing supporters of Salafist ideology. Pakistani
Salafist scholars expressed concern about the plight of the Salafists in
Afghanistan and called on the Taliban leadership to stop their persecution.
Trends suggest that the conflict between the
Taliban and IS-K will increase insecurity in
Pakistan.
The situation is affecting Pakistan
in many ways. First, as predicted by many analysts, a protracted conflict and
insecurity in Afghanistan will affect Pakistan's border security and the
militant landscape in its border areas in CP and Balochistan. Second, the
struggle between the Taliban and IS-K has already reached Pakistan, where IS-K
has carried out several attacks on suspected Afghan Taliban members and
associated religious scholars in Balochistan and the CP in recent years. In
October, IS-K alleged the targeted killing of militant Noor Zaman, a member of
the Afghan Taliban's Haqqani network near Wana, the headquarters of the tribal
district of South Waziristan. Last month, the group killed a JUI-F leader on
suspicion of ties to the Taliban.
This trend suggests that
the conflict between the Taliban and IS-K will further increase insecurity
within Pakistan and the split between Salafis and Hanafi in the country or at
least in the tribal districts of Bajaur, Mohmand and Orakzai, which have
decades of history, will further widen such a gap. During the so-called jihad
against the Soviet Union, the Salafist scholar Sheikh Jamilur Rehman formed a
Sharia-based government in the Afghan provinces of Nuristan and Kunar, which
also influenced the neighboring tribal areas in Pakistan. Even after September
11th, the Salafist militant groups in the tribal districts of Bajaur and
Mohmand had opposed the Pakistani Taliban and remained directly connected to
the Salafist leadership of Al-Qaeda.
As mentioned earlier, the Taliban's perception of Salafists is rooted in history
and cannot completely go away due to some external interference. Abdul Sayed, a
well-known militancy researcher, traced the roots of the conflict in one of his
recent articles and stated that the Taliban are suspicious of Afghan Salafists
for supporting their archenemy IS-K. Some leading Afghan Salafist religious
scholars pledged allegiance to Supreme Taliban leader Shaikh Hibatullah
Akhunzada in March 2020 Taliban.
However,
all of these efforts have largely failed to build trust between the two warring
groups. One main reason is that Salafist scholars have very critical views of
the Sufis and Maturidi Hanafis who dominate the ranks of the Taliban. The
Salafist scholars declared them unclean Muslims and considered them apostates
because of their theological beliefs. This resulted in an unofficial Taliban
ban on Afghan Salafists in the pre-9/11 era. As a result, Afghan Salafists
moved to Peshawar, where Salafist madrasas took place. Mr. Sayyed also pointed
out that al-Qaeda had tried several times to build trust between the Taliban
and the Afghan Salafists, but once the Taliban took full control of the
insurrection, they began again to purge their ranks of Salafists.
In the current context, the Taliban also know that the IS-K is strengthening its
networks in the cities by recruiting angry, battle-hardened members of other
groups as well as self-radicalized educated young people, mostly supporters of
Salafism. Some experts have claimed that the Kabul IS-K network has also taken
in splinters and defectors from the Taliban's radical Haqqani network.
Similarly, IS-K has waged an extensive propaganda war against the Taliban,
declaring their allies and puppets of the US who have deviated from their
jihadist intentions; that was the Taliban propaganda against previous Afghan
governments.
The ranks of the Taliban also
believe that the Afghan Salafists can build up a parallel military strength
with the support of Saudi Arabia because they do not like the Taliban's
involvement in Qatar, where they have set up their office in Doha. The Taliban
leadership also remained concerned about Saudi Arabia-led religious diplomacy
initiatives aimed at reconciliation with the Ashraf Ghani government.
Should Saudi Arabia recognize
the Taliban regime and provide economic aid, this could have consequences for
the Salafists in Afghanistan. It is not certain how Riyadh will behave in the
future, but Saudi Arabia, as the current chairman of the Organization for
Islamic Cooperation, has requested a special meeting on Afghanistan, which will
discuss Saudi policy on Afghanistan on the 19th.
The Taliban also
fear that other outside actors, if not Saudi Arabia, could use IS-K to weaken
their regime. Who better understand the role of external support in
destabilizing a country than the Taliban? But merging a militant group with a community
is a mistake that can continue to fuel the anger that only benefits IS-K.
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