Commentary
Former U.S. Envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad’s suggestion that America and its allies should side with the Taliban against ISIS-K, which has waged an increasingly bloody insurgency against Taliban hegemony in Afghanistan, embodies the naïve belief that there are good jihadists and bad jihadists.
“ISIS is the common enemy of the Taliban and the international community. Cooperation against ISIS can be a key part of future relations. Among the options available, the completed implementation of the Doha agreement is the best way forward. It deals with
all issues of concern to Afghans and the international community,” Khalilzad wrote in a
tweet last week following the Taliban’s raid of an ISIS-K hideout in Kabul.
Khalilzad’s mentality reflects the same ideology that resulted in the Obama administration thinking it could fight against al-Qaida and later ISIS by supporting the Muslim Brotherhood a decade ago. State Department officials
knew at the highest levels that the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaida had a clandestine relationship and that the public display of mutual animosity sometimes was just for show.
It’s just an example of the ideologically motivated blinders that are all too common in the State Department when it comes to Islamism.
Taliban opposition to ISIS-K doesn’t make it a friend of the United States or of the West. The Taliban’s
raid of an ISIS-K safehouse in Kabul boils down to one jihadist gang exacting retribution on another.
“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban will not allow any of its members, other individuals or groups, including al-Qa’ida, to use the soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States and its allies,” The Doha Agreement states (
pdf).
Thus far all indications are that the Taliban has failed to uphold its end of the Doha Agreement. Al-Qaida remains active in Afghanistan and is reported by Afghan sources to be training Taliban fighters.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken
noted in August that the Taliban violated the Doha Agreement after al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in Kabul last August.
The idea of siding with one terrorist faction against another spectacularly backfired in Libya and Syria where the CIA and U.S. military-backed jihadist groups turned against each other. Both countries also became breeding grounds for terrorist activities in the West. That’s not to suggest that the Biden administration has similar plans in Afghanistan. Currently, there’s no clear indication that ISIS-K has plans to launch attacks in the West.
While the Taliban might currently be in a state of truce with the United States and the West due to the Doha Agreement, there’s no guarantee it always will be. Mullah Baradar
signed the Doha Agreement in 2020; however, it’s unclear what authority he had because the Taliban’s executive power lay in the hands of the Quetta Shura and not in his hands.
The Taliban may abide by the Doha Agreement for a set period of time, but some analysts worry that the Islamist movement is
abiding by what Islamic jurisprudence calls a “hudna.” A “hudna” is rooted in the Muslim Prophet Muhammad’s
Treaty of Hudaybiyyah in which he agreed to a decade-long truce with the Quraish tribe in Mecca. The Afghan Taliban consulted with al-Qaida leadership after signing the agreement to limit its application within the borders of Afghanistan. The continued collaboration between al-Qaida and the Taliban clearly violates the Doha Agreement.
“Al-Qaida is considered a significant threat to international security over the long term, especially relative to ISIL-K, which poses the greater threat in the short and medium term,” the UN Security Council terrorism report (
pdf) from last June stated.
ISIS-K appears to believe this is exactly what the Taliban did when it agreed to the Doha Agreement.
“The Messenger of Allah made treaty with the idolaters of Quraysh, but he did not prevent the Muslims outside that treaty to fight against Quraysh. The door of jihad was opened for them, when the Muslims fought day and night against the polytheists all over the Arabian Peninsula,” ISIS-K’s propaganda magazine “The Voice of Khurasan”
said in September.
ISIS-K accuses the Taliban of invoking the Treaty of Hudabiyyah as an unIslamic submission to the infidel. It accuses the Taliban of being apostates from Islam.
ISIS-K is not the same as the mother group in Iraq and Syria that swept across the country. It’s far smaller and is well-checked by the Taliban’s superior firepower. ISIS-K holds no territory, is comparatively small, and, as long as it’s locked in a battle with the Taliban, offers few immediate threats to the United States or its allies.
The Taliban has taken to fighting among itself and has split into different warring factions, and ISIS-K could benefit from these divisions as Taliban fighters defect into its ranks. The same sort of trend happened in both Libya and Syria.
But so far there hasn’t been any indication that a Libyan or a Syrian ISIS situation could be on the table.
Siding with the Taliban against ISIS-K is like siding with a rival gang to combat another. The Taliban is no friend of the West and pretending that it is, is just dangerous. The Taliban’s link to al-Qaida and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) offers the possibility that Iran can use Afghanistan for its own terrorist purposes.
There are only bad jihadis.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
