KABUL: A little more than a month after toppling the Western-backed government in Kabul, Afghanistan's new Taliban rulers are facing internal enemies who have adopted many of the tactics of urban warfare that marked their own successful guerrilla campaign.
A deadly attack on Kabul airport last month and a series of bomb blasts in the eastern city of Jalalabad, all claimed by the local affiliate of Daesh, have underlined the threat to stability from violent militant groups who remain unreconciled to the Taliban.
While the movement's spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has downplayed the threat, saying this week that Daesh had no effective presence in Afghanistan, commanders on the ground do not dismiss the threat so lightly.
Two members of the movement's intelligence services who investigated some of the recent attacks in Jalalabad said the tactics showed the group remained a danger, even if it did not have enough fighters and resources to seize territory.
Using sticky bombs - magnetic bombs usually stuck to the underside of cars - the attacks targeted Taliban members in exactly the same way the Taliban itself used to hit officials and civil society figures to destabilize the former government.
"We are worried about these sticky bombs that once we used to apply to target our enemies in Kabul. We are concerned about our leadership as they could target them if not controlled them successfully," said one of the Taliban intelligence officials.
Daesh in Khorasan, the name taken from the ancient name for the region that includes modern Afghanistan, first emerged in late 2014 but has declined from its peak around 2018 following a series of heavy losses inflicted by both the Taliban and U.S. forces.
Taliban security forces in Nangarhar said they had killed three members of the movement on Wednesday night and the intelligence officials said the movement still retains the ability to cause trouble through small-scale attacks.
"Their main structure is broken and they are now divided in small groups to carry out attacks," one of them said.
FUNDING DRIED UP
The Taliban have said repeatedly that they will not allow Afghanistan to be used as a base for attacks on other countries. But some Western analysts believe the return of the Islamist group to power has invigorated groups like Daesh-K and al Qaeda, which had made Afghanistan their base when the Taliban last ruled the country.
"In Afghanistan, the return of Taliban is a huge victory for the Islamists," said Rohan Gunaratna, professor of security studies at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University. "They have celebrated the return of the Taliban, so I think that Afghanistan is the new theatre."
Daesh-K is believed to draw many of its fighters from the ranks of the Taliban or the Pakistani version of the Taliban, known as the TTP, but much of the way it operates remains little understood.
It has fought the Taliban over smuggling routes and other economic interests but it also supports a global Caliphate under Islamic law, in contrast with the Taliban which insists it has no interest in anywhere outside Afghanistan.
Most analysts, as well as the United Nations, peg Daesh-K's strength at under 2,000 fighters, compared to as many as 100,000 at the Taliban's disposal. The ranks of Daesh-K were swollen with prisoners released when Afghanistan's jails were opened by the Taliban as they swept through the country.
According to a June report by the UN security council, Daesh-K's financial and logistic ties to its parent organisation in Syria have weakened, though it does retain some channels of communication.
"Funding support to the Khorasan branch from the core is believed to have effectively dried up," the report said.
However, the report said signs of divisions within the Taliban, which have already started to emerge, could encourage more fighters to defect as the wartime insurgency tries to reshape itself into a peacetime administration.
"It remains active and dangerous, particularly if it is able, by positioning itself as the sole pure rejectionist group in Afghanistan, to recruit disaffected Taliban and other militants to swell its ranks," the UN said.
Daesh uses Taliban's own tactics to attack Afghanistan's new rulers
https://arab.news/pzw9r
Daesh uses Taliban's own tactics to attack Afghanistan's new rulers
- Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has downplayed the threat from Daesh
- Commanders on the ground do not dismiss the threat so lightly
Ahead of strikes, Trump was told Iran attack is high risk, high reward
- Experts caution that the unfolding conflict could take dangerous turns and the first official said the Pentagon’s planning did not appear to guarantee the outcome of any conflict
WASHINGTON: Ahead of the US attack on Iran, President Donald Trump received briefings that not only delivered blunt assessments about the risk of major US casualties but also touted the prospect of a geopolitical shift in the Middle East in favor of US interests, a US official told Reuters. The launch of what the Pentagon called Operation Epic Fury on Saturday plunged the Middle East into a new and unpredictable conflict. The US and Israeli militaries struck sites across Iran, triggering retaliatory Iranian attacks against Israel and nearby Gulf Arab countries.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the briefers described the operation to the president as a high-risk, high-reward scenario that could present a once-in-a-generation opportunity for change in the region.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Trump briefings included risks, opportunities in Middle East
• Diplomatic efforts with Iran fail to avert military confrontation
• Iran vows retaliation, targets US and Israeli interests
Trump himself appeared to echo that sentiment when he acknowledged the stakes at the onset of the operation, saying “the lives of courageous American heroes may be lost.”
“But we’re doing this not for now, we’re doing this for the future, and it is a noble mission,” Trump said in a video address announcing the start of major combat operations.
“For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted death to America and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder ... We’re not gonna put up with it any longer.”
The briefings from Trump’s national security team help explain how the president decided to pursue arguably the riskiest US military operation since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Ahead of the strikes, Trump received multiple briefings from officials, including CIA Director John Ratcliffe, US General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
On Thursday, Admiral Brad Cooper, who leads US forces in the Middle East as the head of Central Command, flew to Washington to join discussions in the White House Situation Room.
A second US official said that before the strikes, the White House had been briefed on risks associated with operations against Iran, including retaliatory strikes on multiple US bases in the region by Iranian missiles that could overwhelm defenses, as well as Iranian proxies attacking US troops in Iraq and Syria.
The official said that despite the massive military buildup by the United States, there were limits to the air defense systems that had been rushed into the region.
Experts caution that the unfolding conflict could take dangerous turns and the first official said the Pentagon’s planning did not appear to guarantee the outcome of any conflict.
Trump called on Iranians to topple the government but that is easier said than done, said Nicole Grajewski with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“The Iranian opposition is pretty fragmented. It’s unclear what the population is willing to do in terms of rising up,” Grajewski said.
Both US officials requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the internal discussions.
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Pentagon declined to comment.
TRUMP’S SWEEPING GOALS
In the weeks leading up to the attack, Trump ordered a major military buildup in the Middle East. Reuters reported military planning to carry out a sustained campaign against Iran, if that is what the president chose. Plans included targeting individual officials, officials said.
An Israeli official said Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian were both targeted but the result of the strikes was unclear. Speaking on Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there were many signs indicating that Khamenei “is no longer” and called on Iranians to “take to the streets to finish the job.”
Trump made clear on Saturday that his objectives in Iran were sweeping, saying he would end the threat posed by Tehran to the United States and give Iranians a chance to topple their rulers. To accomplish this, he outlined plans to lay waste to much of Iran’s military as well as deny it the ability to build a nuclear weapon. Iran denies seeking a nuclear weapon.
“We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground... We’re going to annihilate their navy,” he said. “We’re going to ensure that the region’s terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces.”
Trump’s decision demonstrates an increasing risk appetite, far greater than when he ordered US special operations forces into Venezuela last month to seize that country’s president in an audacious raid.
The unfolding campaign against Iran is also riskier than when Trump ordered US forces to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites in June.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards threatened all US bases and interests in the region and said Iran’s retaliation would continue until “the enemy is decisively defeated.”
Experts warn that Iran has many options for retaliation, including missile strikes but also drones and cyber warfare.
Daniel Shapiro, a former senior Pentagon official for Middle East issues, said that despite the US and Israeli strikes, Tehran would still be capable of causing some pain.
“Iran has many more ballistic missiles that can reach US bases than the US has interceptors ... some Iranian weapons will get through,” said Shapiro, also a former US ambassador to Israel. “(The strikes are) a major gamble.”
