The Islamic State extremist group has taken responsibility for a series of deadly street bombs against Taliban fighters in eastern Afghanistan, fueling the specter of greater conflict between the country’s new Taliban rulers and their longtime rivals.
A Series of explosions rocked the Taliban Vehicles in the Afghan provincial city of Jalalabad over the weekend that killed eight people, including Taliban fighters. On Monday, three more explosions with unconfirmed reports of other Taliban victims were heard in the city, an IS stronghold.
The Taliban are under pressure to contain IS fighters, also in order to keep a promise made to the international community to prevent terrorist attacks from Afghan soil. Even among conflict-weary Afghans, there is widespread expectation that the new rulers will restore at least a certain level of public security, despite fears and concerns about the Taliban.
“We thought peace would come since the Taliban came,” said Feda Mohammad, a brother of an 18-year-old rickshaw driver who was killed along with a 10-year-old cousin in one of the explosions on Sunday.
“But there is no peace, no security. You can hear nothing except the news of bomb explosions that have killed this or that person,” said Mohammad and spoke in the family home, where relatives and neighbors gathered for a memorial ceremony, drank black tea and reciting verses from the Quran.
The latest IS bombings come as the Taliban are faced with the daunting task of ruling a country torn by four decades of war. The economy is in free fall, the health system is on the brink of collapse and thousands of the country’s educated elite have fled. International aid organizations predict worsening drought, hunger and poverty.
“Our misery has reached its peak,” said Abdullah, a shopkeeper in Jalalabad, on Monday, the day after ISIS claimed responsibility for the bombings that rocked the city two days earlier.
“People don’t have jobs, people sell their carpets to buy flour … still there are explosions and (IS) claims the attacks,” said Abdullah, who, like many Afghans, has only one name.
The weekend bombings were reminiscent of the threat posed by the militants. A few weeks ago, when American and foreign troops ended their withdrawal and the hectic airlift from the country, IS suicide bombers targeted US evacuation efforts in front of Kabul International Airport in one of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan in years. The explosion killed 169 Afghans and 13 US soldiers.
The events have heightened fears of further violence as IS fighters exploit the vulnerability of an overwhelmed Taliban government facing massive security problems and economic collapse.
“You are making a very dramatic comeback,” said Ibraheem Bahiss, an advisor to the International Crisis Group and an independent research analyst on the Islamic State. “There could be a long-term struggle between the groups.”
For the time being, the Afghan IS subsidiary has shied away from attacks against the West and maintained a local focus, but that could possibly change, Bahiss said.
The goals of the IS branch in Afghanistan differ from those of the Taliban, who took control of the country days before the US troops withdrew. While the Taliban have struggled to gain ground in Afghanistan, the IS chapter seeks to incorporate parts of the country into a broader self-proclaimed caliphate or Islamic empire across the Middle East.
The franchise, which consists largely of Pakistani militants pushed across the border by military operations, first took up ISIS ‘call for global jihad against non-Muslims in the months after the group’s core fighters hit Syria and the Iraq were swept.
While they share hostility towards the American armed forces and a harsh interpretation of Sunni Islam, the Taliban and IS are sworn enemies. Just as the Taliban fought against US coalition troops in the long Afghan war, the group also carried out a successful offensive to drive IS fighters out of their enclaves in the north and east of the country – at times with the support of the US and the US-backed Afghan government .
Despite years of US air strikes and other military setbacks that narrowed the ranks of ISIS, the United Nations reported earlier this year that the group “remains active and dangerous,” a threat to Afghanistan and the wider region. The affiliate has carried out some of the country’s most brutal attacks on schools, mosques and even a maternity hospital in recent years, mainly targeting the Shiite Muslim minority.
The subsidiary has increasingly lured Taliban hard-line defectors and foreign militants disaffected with what they believe to be the Taliban’s overly moderate ways. The New York-based Soufan Center said in an analysis on Monday that the franchise poses “one of the greatest risks to the future fragmentation of the Taliban” … in Afghanistan. “As the power struggle between pragmatists and ideologues in the Taliban leadership intensifies, the IS offshoot has stepped up its recruiting efforts.
At the moment, the Taliban troops are vastly outnumbered than the IS fighters, and experts doubt that the extremist group poses an existential threat to the new rulers of Afghanistan. But if the bombings continue, said Franz Marty, a fellow at the Swiss Institute for Global Affairs in Kabul, “it could become a big problem.”
“It affects people’s perception. If the Taliban cannot keep their promise to secure the country, it could turn the public mood in the east against them,” he said.
Despite the concerns of local residents in Jalalabad, public safety has improved significantly elsewhere, including the capital, Kabul. Before the Taliban came to power, Kabul was plagued by a sharp rise in crime and many residents were afraid to leave their homes after dark.
But in Jalalabad, the sad father of the ten-year-old boy who was killed in the explosion on Sunday described the recent attacks as an ominous omen.
“We live in poverty and have no security either,” said Zarif Khan. “Today my son lost his life, tomorrow the sons of others will lose their lives.”
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