Can The Taliban Handle the Islamic State?

Speaking at an Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit in mid-December, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan caused quite a stir. Among his many controversial comments (not the least of which was suggesting that educating girls was just not a part of Afghan culture), Khan said that the Islamic State Khorasan (ISK) had attacked Pakistan from the Afghan side of the border.

Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who remained in Afghanistan even as the Western-backed government of his successor Ashraf Ghani collapsed, fired back on Twitter, characterizing Khan’s remarks as “an attempt to sow discord among Afghans, and an insult to the Afghan people.” The thread went on: “…allegation that #ISIS is active in #Afghanistan, threatening #Pakistan from #Afghanistan is clear propaganda as the reality has been the opposite. The threat of #ISIS has been directed from #Pakistan against #Afghanistan from the very onset.”

Karzai concluded: “Gov of #Pak to strictly refrain from propagating against #Afg and interfering in our internal affairs. #Pakistan should avoid speaking on behalf of #Afghanistan in international forums .It should work towards creating positive and civilized relations between the two countries.”

The Taliban’s Acting Foreign Minister Khan Muttaqi downplayed Khan’s comment, telling reporters in Kabul, “It was a summit, everyone has an opinion.” Muttaqi instead criticized Karzai, though not by name: “Imran Khan criticized the former [Afghan] governments. I think officials of the former governments felt obligated to react, I don’t see [Khan's remarks] as insulting.”

Muttaqi did, however, apparently stress that if what Khan was saying was that the Taliban government was too weak to control the ISK threat, as TOLO News summarized, “[H]e hopes it will never happen.”

The Pakistani government has been one of the Taliban’s biggest supporters on the international stage, more openly since the August collapse of the Ghani government. Criticism has flown for decades from Afghans that Pakistan is meddling in the country’s affairs. ISK adds a third party to the play, one which the Taliban and Pakistan have an interest in tackling as it threatens their regimes. The Taliban also have a domestic political interest in downplaying ISK’s significance.

Taliban officials have dismissed handwringing over the potential growth of ISK in the country, with Muttaqi rejecting remarks from Western officials that ISK and al-Qaida are seeing a resurgence in Afghanistan under the Taliban.

In late November, the United States designated three ISK leaders as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists.” And in a December 10 interview with the Associated Press, General Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, said that ISK was “reinvigorated” in mid-August with the release of prisoners from Afghanistan’s prisons. He also said that both ISK and al-Qaida were actively recruiting inside and outside Afghanistan.

“So certainly we should expect a resurgent ISIS,” he said. “It would be very surprising if that weren’t the case.” McKenzie added, “It remains to be seen that the Taliban are going to be able to take effective action against them.”

Earlier, in October, the Washington Post reported that the Pakistani government was directly aiding the Taliban in fighting ISK. An anonymous Taliban official suggested that if the international community shared information, “we could defeat Daesh [ISK] in just days.”

The report received a dismissive reply from a Taliban spokesman who said, ISK “is not a serious threat to the Islamic Emirate. We don’t see it as a major challenge, so we don’t need any outside support to tackle this issue.”

On the surface, the Taliban government says ISK is not an issue with which it needs assistance; though it appears it is actually cooperating with Pakistan to deal with ISK. Observers say the Taliban cannot deal with ISK on their own and that a failure to do so with breed further instability in the region.

Writing for War on the Rocks in November, Colin P. Clarke and Jonathan Schroden noted that Taliban efforts to combat ISK have become increasingly brutal – hanging and beheading suspected members in public, for example. “These tactics are ruthless and – unfortunately for the Taliban – they’re not working,” they wrote. Not only do increased ISK attacks damage the Taliban’s claims of legitimacy, but they distract attention from other critical threats, not the least of which are the ongoing economic collapse and devastating food crisis.

It can also be argued that the Taliban’s tactics – which include much reviled night raids – may be as effective as recruitment mechanisms for ISK as they were for the Taliban when it was the United States staging night raids on suspected militants’ homes. Furthermore, as the Taliban maneuver politically on the global stage to try and gain recognition (and access to the Afghan state’s frozen reserves, most importantly), the group’s attempts at moderation, even if they are merely rhetorical, could push those who would rather be fighting than governing into the ranks of ISK.

ISK conducted at least 54 attacks between mid-September and late October in Afghanistan, according to one estimate. This marked a serious rise in pace. One analysis noted that that from January 2020 to July 2021, ISKP conducted 83 attacks. Put another way: ISK conducted 83 attacks over a span of 19 months before the rise of the Taliban government; in a two-month period after the Taliban came to power, it concluded more than 54 attacks (note, the period here from mid-September to late October does not include ISK’s attack at the Kabul airport during the final U.S. evacuation, in which 183 people were killed.)

The biggest concern, of course, is that if the Taliban cannot manage the ISK threat effectively, it will metastasize.