Inside the Hidden War Between the Taliban and ISIS
By Alan Cullison, 8/26/21, Wall St. Journal

Two days before he was shot dead by the Taliban, Abu Omar
Khorasani, a onetime leader of Islamic State in Afghanistan,
sat slumped in a dingy Afghan prison interview room, waiting
for his soon-to-be executioners.

Khorasani saw the Taliban’s advance as a harbinger for
change. For years both orgs had sworn to rid Afghanistan
of nonbelievers.

“They will let me free if they are good Muslims,” he told
The Wall St. Journal in an interview.

When Taliban fighters seized Kabul last week, they took
control of the prison, freed hundreds of inmates, & killed
Khorasani & 8 other members of his terror group.

Just as the Taliban has been fighting American coalition
forces in Afghanistan, it has been waging a separate but
parallel war against its rival Islamist group.

On one side are the Taliban, who have co-opted remnants of
al Qaeda. On the other is the Afghan arm of Islamic State,
known as ISIS-K, which has sought to incorporate parts of
Afghanistan into a broader caliphate emanating from the
Middle East.

The Taliban, assisted at times by other countries & U.S.
coalition forces, were the winner in that effort, defense
officials say. ISIS-K has been driven from its enclaves in
Afghanistan & its fighters dispersed into hiding. There
appeared to be little resistance as the Taliban swept across
the country this month in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal.

On Thursday, in a reminder that the battle remains bloody,
two explosions ripped thru the crowds surrounding Kabul
airport, where the Taliban & U.S. forces had been providing
security to foreigners & locals seeking to flee.

At least 90 Afghans & 13 U.S. service members were killed,
the Pentagon said. U.S. officials attributed the attacks to
Islamic State’s regional affiliate. Islamic State claimed

responsibility in a report posted by its Amaq news agency.

The continued presence of Islamic State in Afghanistan is
one reason the Taliban could receive int'l support from
countries, incl. the U.S., that view Islamic State as a
profound threat.

Russia, China & Iran say they see Taliban as a mainstay of
stability in Afghanistan—a reason they plan to keep their
Kabul embassies open after the U.S. withdrawal.

During a news conference after Thursday’s attack, Marine
Corps Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of U.S. CentCom, said
the U.S. was relying on the Taliban to screen Afghans as
they approached the airport.

“We use the Taliban as a tool to protect us as much as
possible,” he said.

When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11
attacks, the Taliban had few allies. The org was reviled
in the West for hosting al Qaeda terrorists, & opposed by
regional powers including Russia & Iran.

Behind the appearance of solidarity between the Taliban &
al Qaeda was an uneasy relationship, with many Taliban
resenting Osama bin Laden for using the country as an
operating base starting the late 90s.

A computer recovered by the Journal in Kabul after the
Taliban were ousted in 2001 showed that al Qaeda members
often looked down on their Afghans allies as illiterate &
incapable of understanding the Quran. Members of the Taliban
in turn blamed some in al Qaeda for exacerbating problems
with the West & contributing to their country’s isolation.

The 9/11 attacks created new fissures as leaders of both
orgs were forced into hiding. Taliban founder Mullah Omar
didn’t appear to know about the attacks in advance, & his
relationship with bin Laden was chilly while both were in
hiding in Pakistan, said Anne Stenersen, a researcher of
Islamism & author of the book “Al-Qaida in Afghanistan.”

After U.S. forces killed bin Laden in 2011, documents
recovered from his Pakistan hideout suggest scant contact
between the al Qaeda leader and Omar, she said.

The Taliban & al Qaeda forged stronger bonds on the
battlefield as both fought U.S. occupation forces.

While the Taliban took years to regroup after 2001,
al Qaeda launched the first successful attacks on U.S.
troops in the eastern province of Ghazni in 2004, using
IEDs, said one former Taliban commander who fought U.S.
& govt troops there.

By 2009, the groups began to merge their commands, usually
with al Qaeda members embedded alongside Taliban fighter
groups, the former commander said. The combined forces of
the two groups waged a terror campaign against the U.S.-
backed govt & coalition forces thru hit-&-run attacks,
bombings & targeted assassinations.

The dynamic shifted as al Qaeda sought a lower profile &
Islamic State rose in prominence in 2015. The new group
seized territory in Syria & Iraq, and invited fighters
to join to create a province of “Khorasan,” a historical
region encompassing parts of Afghanistan, Iran & former
Soviet states of Central Asia.

The group found devotees among disaffected Taliban &
militants from Central & South Asia, some of whom
volunteered for service in Syria & Iraq. Two Islamic State
enclaves appeared inside Afghanistan itself; one in the
eastern province of Nangarhar & another in the northern
province of Jowzjan.

The arrivals weren’t welcomed by the Taliban, which viewed
Islamic State as an impediment. Islamic State had more
ambitious global goals, while the Taliban sought to regain
control of Afghan & had no interest in helping Islamist
groups outside the country, said Khorasani in interviews
conducted shortly before his death.

“The leadership of Daesh is independent, the goals of
Daesh are independent,” Khorasani said, using an alternative
name for Islamic State. “We have a global agenda & so when
people ask who can really represent Islam & the whole
Islamic community, of course we’re more attractive.”

Other nations began to view the Taliban as a potential
bulwark against Islamic State’s global ambitions.

“There was huge concern about it & suddenly there was a
desire to find some common ground with the Taliban,” said
Bruce Hoffman, director of security studies at Georgetown U.
“People began saying maybe they were a group we could
reason with.”

Russia, which still officially classifies the Taliban as
a terrorist org, opened negotiations with the group over
5 years ago, acc. to Ivan Safranchuk, a Central Asia expert
& prof at Moscow State U. The rise of Islamic State in
Afghanistan “became a motive to go big with these contacts,”
he said.

The U.S. has accused Russia of providing arms to the
Taliban, an allegation that Russia denies. Iran also has
provided arms, acc. to U.S. intel. China separately hosted
a high-level Taliban delegation as recently as this year.

Khorasani said he joined ISIS-K when it opened a chapter
in Afghanistan. He rose to be regional governor—its then-
highest ranking member—overseeing South Asia & the Far East.

Similar to Islamic State in Iraq & Syria, the group in
Afghanistan became infamous for grisly execution videos,
attacks on civilian targets, & use of extreme violence
against newly conquered locals who opposed their rule.

In Nangarhar, where Khorasani served as governor, the
group executed village elders & locals by seating them
blindfolded on a pile of explosives on a hillside, which
it detonated. The group later circulated a video recording
of the execution.

Khorasani said those executed in the video were criminals.

He said attacks by Islamic State often benefited the
Taliban, despite the enmity between the groups. He noted
that a prison break in Jalalabad last year, organized by
Islamic State & involving 4 suicide bombers & 11 gunmen,
set free 100s of prisoners from both the Taliban & Islamic
State.

A showdown between the Taliban & Islamic State took place
in Jowzjan in 2017, Khorasani said, after a commander with
Taliban ties & his fighters swore allegiance to Islamic
State founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. They were joined by a
militant Uzbek group called the Islamic Movement of
Uzbekistan. Together they seized two valleys of the
province & raised Islamic State flag over their statelet,
Khorasani said.

The fighting that he described corresponds with U.S.
accounts of the battles, in which the forces of the U.S.,
the Afghan govt & the Taliban crushed Islamic State militants
over the course of several months. Hundreds of Islamic State
militants surrendered to govt forces the following year.

In Nangarhar, Islamic State was similarly ground down by
attacks by the U.S., Afghan govt & the Taliban, Khorasani
said. The U.S. dropped what is known as the Mother of All
Bombs, or a MOAB, the most powerful conventional bomb in
the U.S. military arsenal, to wipe out a Soviet-era cave
complex controlled by Islamic State militants.

“Everyone supported the Taliban one way or another
against us,” Khorasani said. “It’s no secret why
they began to win.”

The U.S. said at the time that it killed over 90 militants
including several commanders in the bombing of the cave
complex. Khorasani disputed that, saying the complex was
evacuated at the time.

The rise of Islamic State as a new int'l enemy furthered
the Taliban’s global diplomatic efforts, boosting a group
that for years had sought to scrub itself of a terrorist
taint, acc. to former officials of the US-backed Afghan govt.

The US offered the Taliban int'l recognition by opening
negotiations in Doha that led to the release last year of
5,000 inmates from Afghan prisons. Many of those former
detainees flocked to the battlefield, strengthening
Taliban forces, former Afghan govt officials said.

As part of the agreement reached in Doha, the Taliban
promised to prevent militant groups from attacking the West.

Khorasani said he left Nangarhar last year as the remnants
of Islamic State fighters dispersed inside Afghanistan.
He was arrested by U.S. & Afghan forces in a house outside
Kabul in May 2020.

A judge sentenced him to death & 800 years in prison,
he said. The Taliban got to him first.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/isis-taliban-afghanistan-bombing-11630014684

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