The Islamic State’s war against the Taliban is far from over in Afghanistan

The terror does not leave Afghanistan. Fifteen months after the taliban regain power, the much-promised security has not arrived for the Afghans. In yet another attack, some 19 people died on Wednesday, most of them minors, in an attack against a religious school in the city of Aybak, in the north of the country.

Although no group has claimed responsibility, everything indicates that it would be the Islamic State-Khorasan (EI-K), an arch-enemy organization of the Taliban and which in the last year has dedicated itself to incessantly attacking mosques and religious centers in Afghanistanespecially from the Shiite and Hazara minority.

As happened on September 23, when a car bomb killed seven people in a Kabul mosque, or in October 2021 when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a temple in Kunduz, killing almost 100 people during Friday prayers. .

Afghan men carry the body of a victim to an ambulance after a bomb attack on a mosque in Kunduz, Afghanistan, on October 8, 2021, for which ISIS-K claimed responsibility. (AFP).

According to an Aybak doctor consulted by AFP, the victims had injuries to their bodies and faces and fractures to their hands and legs.

“Our investigators and law enforcement are working quickly to identify the perpetrators of this unforgivable crime and punish them for their actions.”said Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Nafay Takor.

Afghanistan: au moins 23 people, dont des enfants, ont été tuées et 30 blessées dans une explosion dans une école coranique de la ville d’Aybak, dans le nord du pays. Le drama s’est produit lors de la prière de l’après-midi. Âmes sensitive, s’abstenir. pic.twitter.com/n3Z5PeKMK2

— David Weber (@davidwe82686746) November 30, 2022

radicals vs. radicals

The rivalry between EI-K and the taliban It is not new, but it has become more entrenched since the latter took over the Afghan government in August 2021.

READ ALSO: Khorasan: the bloody affiliate of the Islamic State in Afghanistan and rival of the Taliban that is another threat to the West

And this was evidenced when a few days after the taliban will take Kabuland when the US military forces had not yet left the country, the EI-K carried out a horrendous attack at the city’s airport, which was then overcrowded with people fighting to flee. The result: 183 deaths and the warning to the Taliban that they would not have peace.

But to understand their rivalry, it is necessary to know the origin of EI-K. In 2014, shortly after the Islamic State (IE) established his caliphate in Iraq and Syria, a group of Pakistani Taliban broke away and joined other Afghan militants. Together they formed a regional affiliate and swore allegiance to IS.

The Islamic State no longer has the caliphate in Syria and Iraq, but it has been able to export its ideology to other parts of the world, such as Africa and Afghanistan. (Reference photo, Getty Images).

The organization was established in the northeast of Afghanistan and since then it also operates in some areas of Pakistan.

Although the Taliban and the EI-K They are Sunni fundamentalists, they confront each other for being the true banners of Islamism. For him Khorasanthe Taliban are traitors for having negotiated with the Westerners and are, so far, their biggest threat.

“The group’s main rival has been the Taliban, which it accuses of abandoning jihad and the battlefield in favor of a negotiated peace deal with the Western world and of being an apostate group. According to the twisted interpretation of the Islamic law of Islamic State of Khorasanapostates can and must be killed”explains Dr. Mahmut Cengiz, associate professor and researcher in terrorism and transnational crime at George Mason University, in Washington DC, to the magazine “Homeland Security Today.”

The fact that the Taliban have become a government has made things easier for the EI-Kbecause it has been easy for them to sell themselves to the population as the group that wants to defeat them, despite the trail of death they continue to leave.

Thus, in the last year the number of combatants has doubled to reach 4,000 individuals and has expanded its presence in almost all the 34 provinces of the country.

“The Taliban’s misrule in Afghanistan, where 97% of the population lives in poverty and suffers persistent famine, could engender public sympathy for IS-K and, in turn, allow it to recruit more members”adds Cengiz.

Source: Elcomercio