Afghanistan Archives - APADANA MEDIA https://apadanamedia.org/tag/afghanistan/ MEDIA NEWS Thu, 26 Aug 2021 13:36:55 +0000 en hourly 1 164847928 The Taliban’s recapture of Afghanistan has sparked fears of an al Qaeda and ISIS revival https://apadanamedia.org/the-talibans-recapture-of-afghanistan-has-sparked-fears-of-an-al-qaeda-and-isis-revival/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-talibans-recapture-of-afghanistan-has-sparked-fears-of-an-al-qaeda-and-isis-revival https://apadanamedia.org/the-talibans-recapture-of-afghanistan-has-sparked-fears-of-an-al-qaeda-and-isis-revival/#respond Thu, 26 Aug 2021 07:54:50 +0000 https://apadanamedia.org/?p=1229968 In the February 2020 agreement reached with the US in Doha, the Taliban pledged to prevent al Qaeda and other terror groups from using Afghan soil. Last week, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid repeated the promise. “No death will be caused to anyone outside of Afghanistan … we will not allow anyone to use Afghanistan against […]

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]]> In the February 2020 agreement reached with the US in Doha, the Taliban pledged to prevent al Qaeda and other terror groups from using Afghan soil. Last week, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid repeated the promise. “No death will be caused to anyone outside of Afghanistan … we will not allow anyone to use Afghanistan against them.”
In recent years, the Taliban has kept al Qaeda in check. Edmund Fitton-Brown, who leads the United Nations Monitoring Team on Afghanistan, noted in an interview with CTC Sentinel 2019 that the Taliban had “shown an iron self-discipline in recent years in not allowing a threat to be projected outside the borders of Afghanistan by their own members or by groups who are operating in areas they control.”
US concerned about 'very specific threat stream' from ISIS-K against crowds outside Kabul airportUS concerned about 'very specific threat stream' from ISIS-K against crowds outside Kabul airport
Western — and not only Western — intelligence agencies worry that discipline may begin to fray, for a variety of reasons. For a start, the Doha process is dead; facts on the ground mean the Taliban don’t need to play nice. There is continuing evidence of close ties between the Taliban and al Qaeda affiliates. The Haqqani Network, which straddles both groups, is now highly influential in Kabul. And as they emptied out prisons across Afghanistan, Taliban fighters set free hundreds of al Qaeda operatives.
As former CIA counter-terrorism officer Douglas London told CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen, “Those folks are force multipliers for the Taliban, and they are likely to regroup [with] what is left of al Qaeda in Afghanistan.”
US President Joe Biden has argued that the threat from al Qaeda has metastasized to places like Africa and Yemen. “There’s a greater danger from ISIS and al Qaeda and all these affiliates in other countries by far than there is from Afghanistan,” he said last week.
Senior military officers seem less convinced. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, acknowledged in a recent briefing, according to a US Senate aide, that groups like al Qaeda could reconstitute in Afghanistan in less than the two years previously estimated by the defense officials.
Al Qaeda’s leadership and ideological core remains in the mountains along the Afghan/Pakistan border. The US Defense Department said last year that al Qaeda’s affiliate in the region, al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), “maintains close ties to the Taliban in Afghanistan, likely for protection and training.”
That analysis was supported by the UN Monitoring Team on Afghanistan, who reported in June that “large numbers of Al-Qaida fighters and other foreign extremist elements aligned with the Taliban are located in various parts of Afghanistan,” estimating that the terror group has a presence in 15 of the country’s 34 provinces.
For decades the Taliban's leaders have been shrouded in secrecy. Here's what we know about the key playersFor decades the Taliban's leaders have been shrouded in secrecy. Here's what we know about the key players
The report added that “Al-Qaida maintains contact with the Taliban but has minimized overt communications with Taliban leadership in an effort to ‘lay low.'”
Even so, Raffaello Pantucci, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, says, “The idea that the Taliban would simply jettison such supporters after a glorious victory handed to them by God seems to miss a pretty fundamental point about the organization.”
The same applies to the Haqqani Network, which has several high-profile positions among the Taliban leadership. The UN report said that “contacts between al-Qaida and the Haqqani Network—including the Taliban’s deputy leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani—remain particularly close. They share long-standing personal relationships, intermarriage, a shared history of struggle and sympathetic ideologies.”
It is difficult to see these being shredded now that the Haqqanis are so influential in Kabul.
Prominent among them is Khalil al-Rahman Haqqani, seen last weekend meeting elders from across Afghanistan. Based at the Interior Ministry, he has been involved in negotiations with the Taliban’s opponents in the Panjshir Valley and has become an important powerbroker in Kabul.
The US Rewards for Justice program has a $5 million reward for his apprehension, saying he “has also acted on behalf of al-Qaida and has been linked to al-Qaida terrorist operations.”
Asked by Pakistani journalist Azaz Syed this week whether the Taliban could offer reassurances to neighboring countries about militant groups on Afghan soil, Haqqani would only say: “We want peace among all the Muslim countries, my advice is peace.”

‘Over-the-horizon capability’

One question is to what extent US intelligence gathering in Afghanistan will be impaired now that it has no presence on the ground.
President Biden has downplayed the risk, saying on August 16: “We’ve developed counterterrorism over-the-horizon capability that will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed on the direct threats to the United States in the region.”
But there’s no substitute for eyes and ears on the ground , whatever satellite and surveillance technology offers.
US Defense Department spokesman Admiral John Kirby said last week the US did not think the number of al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan was exorbitantly high but cautioned that “our intelligence-gathering ability in Afghanistan isn’t what it used to be because we aren’t there in the same numbers that we used to be.”
CIA Director William Burns had testified before Congress earlier this year that neither ISIS nor al Qaeda in Afghanistan had the capability to launch attacks inside the United States but said “when the time comes for the US military to withdraw, the US government’s ability to collect and act on threats will diminish. That’s simply a fact.”
Even if the Taliban were prepared to rein in al Qaeda and other groups, their ability to do so is far from certain. Last month Ken McCallum, director of the UK’s domestic intelligence agency MI5, spoke of the risk of “ungoverned spaces” emerging in Afghanistan.
An effective insurgency doesn’t necessarily translate into an effective government in a country of mountains, poor roads and many competing constituencies.

ISIS and the Taliban: Mutual loathing

While the Taliban’s connections with al Qaeda endure, both groups loathe ISIS, which has tried to establish a foothold in Afghanistan. The ISIS branch known as IS Khorasan (IS-K) has a presence in eastern provinces such as Nangahar and Kunar, but it has been diminished by Taliban attacks.
However, Abdul Syed, a researcher and author on militant movements in Afghanistan and Pakistan, says that through devastating attacks in Kabul and Jalalabad, IS-K “has transformed to a new shape for a long battle in Afghanistan.” He told CNN that it enjoys support from radical Salafists in several provinces.
Some captured IS-K fighters were being held at a prison outside Kabul, which the Taliban overran as their offensive on Kabul accelerated. There are unconfirmed reports — denied by the Taliban –that their fighters killed at least one senior IS-K detainee, Abu Umar Khurasani.
According to one regional counter-terrorism source, upwards of 100 and perhaps many more ISIS prisoners escaped two jails near Kabul that in the chaotic days leading up to the fall of Kabul and have avoided re-arrest.
General Petraeus: The 'disheartening and sad' endgame General Petraeus: The 'disheartening and sad' endgame
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday that the threat of ISIS in Afghanistan is “acute” and “persistent.” It was the risk of suicide attacks by IS-K that led the US to establish alternative routes to Kabul airport and stick to the August 31 deadline to end the evacuation.
Intelligence estimates put the number of IS-K operatives in the low hundreds, but a war of attrition waged by the Taliban has failed to extinguish the threat.
ISIS has scoffed at the Taliban victory, describing it as delusional and saying in its weekly online publication al Naba that “The victory of Islam will not come via hotels in Qatar nor the embassies in Iran and China.”
IS-K leader Shahab al-Muhajir may hope to attract disenchanted jihadis from other groups if the Taliban is seen to “deal” with the West.
There are other groups that see Afghanistan as a haven and pose a more regional threat.
Parts of the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), which have carried out dozens of attacks in their home country, have deep connections with their brethren in Kabul. Abdul Syed, who has studied the Pakistani Taliban in depth, notes that the fall of Kabul resulted in around 800 TTP prisoners being freed, including the group’s deputy emir. The TTP renewed their oath of allegiance to the Taliban and exhorted their members to follow in the footsteps of their Afghan counterparts.
“The ascendance of Afghan Islamists next door will only embolden radicals at home,” Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to Washington, wrote in Foreign Affairs.
“Efforts [by Pakistan] to force the Taliban’s hand might result in violent blowback, with Pakistani Taliban attacking targets inside Pakistan.”
Fact check: Biden claims al Qaeda is 'gone' from Afghanistan. Then the Pentagon confirms it's still thereFact check: Biden claims al Qaeda is 'gone' from Afghanistan. Then the Pentagon confirms it's still there
China is anxious about Uighur jihadis using eastern Afghanistan as a launching pad for attacks inside the restive Muslim province of Xinjiang.
In recent months, according to intelligence sources and former Afghan officials, Uighurs belonging to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) have been in evidence in the province of Badakhshan, which shares a mountainous border with China.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar last month that ETIM was an “international terrorist organization,” and said the Taliban should “completely sever all ties” with the group.
Pantucci says that China’s pre-eminent concern is that Afghanistan will become a base for such groups. So far, he says, the Taliban have largely provided “rhetorical assurances” about Uighurs who might try to use Afghan territory to plot against Beijing.

Morale booster

At the very least, the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban has boosted morale among al Qaeda sympathizers. One message widely distributed on jihadi forums hailed August 15 as a monumental day that had shown “what was taken by force can only be recovered by force.”
Likewise, al Qaeda’s most influential affiliate — al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) — celebrated the Taliban’s victory as the beginning of the Muslim nation’s advance towards “sovereignty, breaking the shackles of dependence and slavery, getting rid of tyrants and expelling the invaders from Muslim lands.”
And the local al Qaeda affiliate — al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent — was similarly effusive, praying that the “Islamic Emirate” in Afghanistan would become a “shield” for Muslims everywhere.
The UN Monitoring Team’s report in June concluded that al Qaeda “stands to benefit from renewed credibility on the back of Taliban gains.”
And it said it was “impossible to assess with confidence that the Taliban will live up to its commitment to suppress any future international threat emanating from Al-Qaida in Afghanistan.”
Even if current al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri is sick — as many analysts believe — and out of touch, al Qaeda may not have to look far for his successor. The Western intelligence community sees Egyptian al Qaeda veteran Saif al-`Adl as the likely choice to succeed the ailing Zawahiri.
He currently lives next door in Iran.
Pantucci believes the Taliban “will do what is required to be politic and try to establish their state, but fundamentally they believe the victory was given to them by Allah. Why should they turn on their allies who fought with them?”

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]]> https://apadanamedia.org/the-talibans-recapture-of-afghanistan-has-sparked-fears-of-an-al-qaeda-and-isis-revival/feed/ 0 1229968 The fact that the US must rely on the Taliban for safe evacuations shows how badly the administration was taken by surprise by the militia’s advance on Kabul https://apadanamedia.org/the-fact-that-the-us-must-rely-on-the-taliban-for-safe-evacuations-shows-how-badly-the-administration-was-taken-by-surprise-by-the-militias-advance-on-kabul/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-fact-that-the-us-must-rely-on-the-taliban-for-safe-evacuations-shows-how-badly-the-administration-was-taken-by-surprise-by-the-militias-advance-on-kabul https://apadanamedia.org/the-fact-that-the-us-must-rely-on-the-taliban-for-safe-evacuations-shows-how-badly-the-administration-was-taken-by-surprise-by-the-militias-advance-on-kabul/#respond Wed, 18 Aug 2021 04:01:02 +0000 https://apadanamedia.org/?p=1228586 As President Joe Biden returned to Washington Tuesday, breaking off his vacation at Camp David for a second time, the White House said that the Taliban had agreed to provide safe passage to Kabul’s airport for civilians who have the right to live in the United States. But the assurances raise multiple questions, including: How […]

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]]> The fact that the US must rely on the Taliban for safe evacuations shows how badly the administration was taken by surprise by the militia's advance on Kabul
As President Joe Biden returned to Washington Tuesday, breaking off his vacation at Camp David for a second time, the White House said that the Taliban had agreed to provide safe passage to Kabul’s airport for civilians who have the right to live in the United States.
But the assurances raise multiple questions, including:
  • How long will the Taliban’s cooperation will last?
  • Who will it allow to leave?
  • Will it stop short of launching purges against Afghan civilians it views as US collaborators?
Thousands of hurriedly deployed US troops appear to have restored order to the airport following harrowing scenes of Afghans, who fear for their lives under Taliban rule, clinging to departing cargo planes, which sparked a political crisis in Washington and stained the US image abroad.
But the level of reliance on the Taliban for the safe completion of the US evacuation not only underscores how badly the administration was taken by surprise by the militia’s lightning advance on Kabul. It means that US officials must accept tacit cooperation of a militia that is itself perceived by civilians who helped US forces over 20 years as a mortal threat.
Many US experts and members of the Afghan diaspora fear that the Taliban will seek retribution against interpreters who worked for the US military and diplomats. There is also concern that members of the now-dissolved Afghan military and special forces will also be targeted.
And given the Taliban’s record of repression and suppression of women and girls under a harsh interpretation of Islam, there are likely many thousands of Afghans who want to leave and will be unable to do so.
A former Afghan interpreter who worked with US troops and is now in the United States told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he believes his family back home could now face reprisals from the Taliban.
“There is not a system for them to get out,” said the man, whose identity, voice and appearance were disguised by CNN for his and his family’s safety. The interpreter said that assurances by the Taliban for an amnesty for all Afghans should not be trusted.
“If these guys are going to be left in Afghanistan … trust me, they will be hunted down and killed,” he said.

US not ‘taking anything for granted’

Nevertheless, as Biden’s team struggled to impose some political order on the crisis, the President’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Tuesday that the US believed that the Taliban was sincere in its offer.
“The Taliban have informed us that they are prepared to provide the safe passage of civilians to the airport, and we intend to hold them to that commitment,” Sullivan said in a White House briefing.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said that there had been no hostile interactions between the Taliban and US forces at Kabul airport following discussions between Gen. Frank McKenzie, who heads US Central Command, and Taliban representatives in Doha, Qatar. McKenzie has since visited Kabul airport.
“I would just let the results speak for themselves so far and we’re not taking anything for granted,” Kirby said.
A White House official told CNN Tuesday night that US military flights evacuated 1,100 US citizens, US permanent residents and their families during that day. More than 3,200 people have been evacuated and 2,000 additional Afghans have been relocated to the United States. Military leaders believe they will soon have the capacity to extract 5,000-9,000 people per day.
The restoration of calm at the airport and the growing momentum of the airlift may buy Biden some time after he failed to quell a political storm despite insisting on Monday that the “buck” stopped with him over the crisis. But the President largely placed blame elsewhere — on his predecessors for letting the war go on for two decades, on ex-President Donald Trump’s deal with the Taliban and on the Afghans themselves for not fighting for their fractured land.
By returning to Camp David soon after his speech, the President again looked disconnected. And he did not make his first call of the crisis to a foreign leader — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson — until shortly before he helicoptered back to the White House on Tuesday evening. Given the magnitude of the crisis, his lack of contact with allies who fought alongside the US in Afghanistan and who were shocked by Kabul’s fall is notable.

Fear in Kabul

The US belief that the Taliban will allow the evacuation to take place as planned came as the militia put on a public relations show of sorts on Tuesday, pledging that it would not allow Afghanistan to be used to harm foreign powers — amid fears in the US that the country will again become a terrorist haven. Militia spokesmen also pledged to respect women’s rights. CNN’s Clarissa Ward in Kabul, however, reported that behind the calm facade there was growing fear and concern among women — few of whom are now on city streets.
The Taliban, savoring its victory, has not yet interfered with US troops on the airport — the tiny patch of Afghanistan the US still controls. But basing the operation on assurances from a radical Islamic group that has effectively driven the Americans out leaves the US highly vulnerable.
It would be too strong to say that the United States is trusting the Taliban to allow the evacuation to proceed unimpeded, since Washington has warned grave consequences for its enemies if Americans are harmed. But equally, the White House little choice but to hope the militia’s forbearance continues.
Its claims were met with skepticism by Republicans.
“I don’t think you can ever trust the Taliban,” Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said at a Washington Post Live event on Tuesday.
“Now we’re stuck in a situation where we’re begging the Taliban to please do not violate our perimeter at this airport as we evacuate. I don’t know how long the Taliban is going to … keep with that agreement. I don’t even know if we have an agreement, to be honest with you.”
Sullivan, however, said that he was confident that the operation would be able to go on until the end of the month.
“We believe that this can go ’til the 31st. We are talking to them about what the exact timetable is for how this will all play out, and I don’t want to negotiate in public on working out the best modality to get the most people out in the most efficient way possible,” Sullivan said.

An uncertain future

It remained unclear how many people the Taliban would allow to leave or if Afghanistan’s new leaders would balk at the departure of specific individuals. Officials also did not publicly make clear how Afghans sheltering in their homes — or Americans left behind — in Kabul could travel to the airport. And it also appears unlikely, given the short time frame, that Afghans who worked with the US and live outside Kabul would be able to get to the capital in time before the evacuation ends.
Another complication arises from the logistical challenge of identifying and processing Afghans who have the right to go to the US or other allied nations involved in the NATO-led Afghan war effort.
The slow progress of the administering of Special Immigrant Visas for Afghans who were employed by the US caused intense frustration among applicants and political leaders in Washington for months. CNN reported on Tuesday that Pentagon officials were harshly critical of the State Department’s failure to speed up the program in recent weeks.
That was before the closure of the US embassy in Kabul. CNN’s Kylie Atwood reported on Tuesday that US personnel destroyed the passports of some Afghans awaiting visas, possibly to stop them falling into Taliban hands.
However long the tenuous truce with the Taliban holds, however, it seems almost certain that there will come a point when the US leaves without rescuing all the Afghans who are eligible to travel to the United States.
Such a scenario will not only trigger further accusations of betrayal against the Biden administration. It will infuriate US veterans, former diplomats and journalists who have been engaged in frantic efforts in recent days to find ways out for former employees and contacts stuck in Afghanistan.
The scope of Washington’s willingness to accept responsibility for Afghans stuck under Taliban rule after the US withdrawal in the longer term also remains uncertain at this point. Given the strength of feeling in Congress, it appears likely there will be some support for a much broader refugee program similar to the large-scale migration that followed the US defeat in the Vietnam War.
At the time, President Gerald Ford authorized the US-sponsored evacuation of 125,000 refugees — a process that led to a huge and thriving Vietnamese US diaspora through family reunification and sponsorships.
But that idea may be politically difficult given the bitter current debate over immigration. Already, several pro-Trump media figures on Fox News are questioning the need for such refugee arrivals.
Their attitude only further underscores the fresh, and enduring, tragedy of Afghans who have yet again been left defenseless because of a superpower’s desire to pursue its own national interests — in the case of the US to exit after a 20-year war. Sullivan said that the idea that women and girls in Afghanistan would again face severe repression was “a very hard thing for any of us to face” but that the alternative was to again send Americans to die in Afghanistan.
“These are the choices a President has to make.”

CNN’s Donald Judd contributed to this report.

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