The Afghan Taliban are eager to join with the US to fight IS because extremists threaten their powerbase.
The Afghan government has been fighting IS since August 2021, when it took power following a 20-year conflict with the United States and its allies, according to a report citing US defense officials.
A senior defense official told the Post that “religious extremist groups are openly at war,” with the Islamic State attacking Afghan Taliban targets and the Taliban retaliating by attacking the former’s hideouts across Afghanistan.
The official stated, “I would never say that we mortgaged our counterterrorism efforts to a group like the Taliban. But it is operationally true that they exert pressure on ISIS-K.” There, in a bizarre world, we have mutually beneficial goals.
A portion of the Post’s report was based on a classified Pentagon assessment, which claimed that the Islamic State was once again using Afghanistan as a staging ground for attacks against the United States, Europe, and Asia.
The report depicted the revived threat as an increasing security risk.
When pressed for comment, a US defense official acknowledged that “the [Afghan] Taliban has served as a check on ISIS” since 2021, when the group seized control of Kabul.
The Pentagon assessment revealed specific plans to attack churches, embassies, business centers, and the World Cup. According to the report, the White House declined to substantiate the authenticity of the assessment. Despite being top-secret and bearing Defence Department logos.
The classified documents were posted online as part of a larger leak by Jack Teixeria. Federal authorities say a Massachusetts Air National Guard member shared them on a private Discord server with friends.
Current and former US officials told the Washington Post that the leaked reports corroborate earlier warnings that terrorist cells could reappear in Afghanistan.
In a statement to the newspaper, the Biden administration, however, defended its counter-terrorism policies.
The United States “maintains the capability to remove terrorists from the battlefield without a permanent troop presence on the ground,” according to Adrienne Watson, spokesperson for the National Security Council.
The coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department, Nathan Sales, told the Post that IS “aspires to attack American interests in the region and ultimately the US homeland itself.”
He urged Washington to immediately devise a strategy to assault the organization’s leadership and infrastructure.
The Afghan Taliban have denounced as inaccurate the US intelligence assessment.
Suhail Shaheen, a spokesperson for the Taliban’s Political Office, stated that IS “has been suppressed”. And that the report “does not reflect the realities on the ground in Afghanistan.”
“Such reports reflect the personal desires of their authors,” he said. Moreover, “The reality is that the Islamic State no longer has a physical presence in Afghanistan as it did during the invasion.”
