According to leaked Pentagon assessment report, seen by The Washington Post, Afghanistan has become a “significant coordination site” for the Islamic State, as the group plans to carry out attacks in Asia and Europe, with aspiration to reach the US.
The assessment, part of the large trove of Pentagon intelligence documents leaked recently, written in March 2023, says that the Islamic State has been developing a “cost-effective model for external operations” which relies on a network of resources and operatives in target countries.
Assessment, according to The Washington Post, says that at least there has been at least nine specific plots coordinated by Islamic State leaders in Afghanistan, with the FIFA World Cup in Qatar – held last December – as well as embassies, places of worships and business centres.
The number plots, the documents reveal, rose to 15 in February.
The documents reveal that the Islamic State has been persistent in its efforts to obtain expertise in creating chemical weapons and acquire and operate drones. The group has taken advantage of Afghanistan’s weakened security under the Taliban to expand its network and operations in the country.
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The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for many deadly attacks across Afghanistan, especially attacks on the Hazara community.
According to the documents, the Taliban “has served as check” on the Islamic State, with the two sides engaging in open warfare. For the US, that means the Taliban is fighting a common enemy.
Taliban leaders, however, consistently denied the Islamic State’s presence in Afghanistan.
A US government official told The Washington Post that “I would never want to say that we had mortgaged our counterterrorism to a group like the Taliban, but it’s a fact that, operationally, they put pressure on ISIS-K,” adding that “In a strange world, we have mutually beneficial objectives there.”
Nathan Sales, a former State Department counterterrorism official in the Trump administration, told The Washington Post that “ISIS-K has enjoyed safe haven in Afghanistan since the administration withdrew 20 months ago.”
The Islamic State “has the ambition to attack American interests in the region and, ultimately, the U.S. homeland itself,” Sales added.
The leaked documents is likely to add further intensity to the criticism of President Joe Biden’s handling of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021.
The documents, according to The Washington Post, do not provide details on Al-Qaida’s operations in Afghanistan. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the group’s leader, killed in drone strike on 31 July 2022, in a safe-house in Kabul.
