Less than a year after the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan following the chaotic US withdrawal in 2021, President Joe Biden vowed that the country that once hosted Osama bin Laden would “never again…” . . become a safe haven for terrorists.”
However, the increase in international terrorist threats linked to Afghanistan is raising alarm among governments that the country that once hosted the masterminds of the September 11, 2001 attacks is once again becoming a hot spot for jihadist groups with global ambitions.
Western officials have blamed the Islamic State-Khorasan province, an affiliate of the Afghanistan-based Middle Eastern extremist group and a bitter enemy of the Taliban, for last week’s attack on a Moscow concert hall that killed at least 137 people.
The Taliban have fought a bloody counterinsurgency campaign against ISIS-K since coming to power, but analysts say the jihadist group has gained substantial strength since the US withdrawal and has more recently stepped up its international activity .
ISIS-K is also linked to the attacks in Iran in January that killed nearly 100 people, an attack on a church in Turkey in the same month and a foiled plot last week to attack the Swedish parliament that authorities say may have been been directed from Afghanistan.
The Pakistani Taliban, an ideological ally of Kabul’s rulers with a large presence in the country, have killed hundreds of people in relentless cross-border attacks from hideouts in Afghanistan since 2021. Analysts believe other Islamist groups, from al-Qaeda to the Party too Islamic Uighur from Turkistan is present in Afghanistan.
Concern about the growing threat of extremist violence linked to Afghanistan prompted General Michael Kurilla, head of US Central Command, to warn, shortly before last week’s violence in Moscow, that “the risk of attacks from Afghanistan is rising,” targeting ISIS-K. .
“ISIS-Khorasan retains the ability and willingness to attack U.S. and Western interests abroad in as little as six months with little or no warning,” Kurilla told Congress.
European officials have also become increasingly attuned to the threat. “ISIS-K is currently the biggest Islamist [terror] threat in Germany,” said Nancy Faeser, Germany’s interior minister, who has foiled several plots linked to ISIS-K over the past 18 months.
She said Southern German newspaper Monday: “The danger posed by Islamic terrorism is still acute.”
As President Vladimir Putin sought to implicate Ukraine in last week’s attack, a Moscow court specified that all four prime suspects were Tajik citizens, a group that makes up a significant component of ISIS-K’s membership . The United States had warned of a threat to Russia from extremists, reportedly telling Moscow it came from the Afghanistan-based group.
While no evidence directly linked the plotters to Afghanistan, analysts said it was the latest sign that regional jihadist groups have become more powerful since the Taliban took power.
“When the Americans left in 2021, there was no regional consensus on security in Afghanistan,” said Kabir Taneja, a fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. As a result, “all these terrorist groups have a lot of room to maneuver.”
The Taliban, who have repeatedly said they do not allow extremists to use the country as a base for terrorist plots, condemned Moscow’s attack “in the strongest terms”.
Although the Taliban has tried to crack down on ISIS-K, they appear more tolerant of other militant groups. In 2022, the United States tracked and killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in central Kabul, fueling Western suspicions that the Taliban harbored him. It was at this point that Biden said Afghanistan would not be allowed to become a haven for jihadists despite the lack of a US military presence on the ground.
Yet violence in Pakistan by groups such as the Pakistani Taliban has taken off. More than 1,500 people have been killed in terror attacks in Pakistan in 2023, triple the toll before the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in 2020, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal.
Pakistan, which accuses the Afghan Taliban of supporting cross-border militants, launched retaliatory airstrikes on Afghanistan last week. A suicide bomber killed six people in an attack on Chinese workers in Pakistan on Tuesday.
Analysts questioned whether the Taliban had the ability to crack down on jihadist operations even if they wanted to. “The United States really couldn’t keep the Taliban and the insurgents under control, with all their weapons and coalition partners,” said Amira Jadoon, an assistant professor at Clemson University in South Carolina. “It’s hard to imagine how the Taliban could protect the country and ensure that militants do not operate.”
ISIS-K began operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2015, attracting thousands of fighters who believed the Taliban were not tough enough. The group wants to create a caliphate in Khorasan, a region that spans parts of the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia.
It was responsible for dozens of attacks after the fall of Kabul, including a suicide bombing at the city’s airport in 2021 that killed at least 175 people, including 13 U.S. soldiers. He has also targeted Afghanistan’s Shiite minority, Taliban officials and, in 2022, the Russian embassy in Kabul.
The United States issued a $10 million reward in 2022 for information leading to ISIS-K leader Sanaullah Ghafari related to the Kabul airport attack. The 29-year-old, also known as Shahab al-Muhajir, is believed to be hiding in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
While the Taliban crackdown has succeeded in reducing domestic attacks, it has left ISIS-K more dependent on international networks and supporters “to orchestrate its actions,” said Jerome Drevon, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.
This has included operations in Europe directed or inspired by Isis-K. Isis-K was “a name [people] we should remember this,” the head of the German secret service, Thomas Haldenwang, said last year. “The group is trying to make a name for itself with attacks. . . In the future, they will try to plan transportation [them out] against Western countries.”
German and Austrian authorities have foiled possible attacks by ISIS-K-linked terrorists against Christian religious sites over the Christmas period. Three were arrested in Vienna on Christmas Eve over an alleged plot to attack St. Stephen’s Cathedral, while four Tajiks were arrested in Germany for planning to massacre worshipers at Cologne Cathedral on New Year’s Eve, according to police.
After German police last week arrested two people who they said had planned an assault on the Swedish parliament, an Interior Ministry official said the government’s joint counterterrorism center now rates Isis-K as the ” more aggressive” of all ISIS affiliates.
After the attack on Moscow, French President Emmanuel Macron said that ISIS-K had also made “several attempts” to attack France in recent months.
Colin Clarke, director of research at the Soufan Center, a New York-based intelligence and security consultancy, said ISIS-K is “knocking on Europe’s door,” signaling the 2024 Paris Olympics as an event of particular concern.
“Threats and plots of violence emanating from Afghanistan not only persist but, in some respects, grow,” said Asfandyar Mir, senior expert at the US Institute of Peace. “The most worrying trend is that ISIS-K is plotting abroad.”
Additional reporting by Bita Ghaffari, Polina Ivanova and John-Paul Rathbone