KABUL, Afghanistan – Homegrown militants loyal to the Islamic State group are making inroads into Afghanistan, controlling territory in some parts of the country and ruling with the harsh hand the group is notorious for in Iraq and Syria, according to officials, military leaders and analysts.
IS expansion into Afghanistan has been a concern for both Afghan and international authorities for months, with officials warning that the militant group was actively recruiting members from other Islamic militant groups, including the rival Taliban.
Now multiple local and international officials say IS loyalists have increased their visibility and in some parts of the country are violently confronting the Taliban – which is still waging its own 14-year-old insurgency to retake power in Kabul.
There remains some confusion as to whether the growing visibility of the now-familiar IS black flag in Afghanistan constitutes the presence of an actual Islamic State group affiliate.
Authorities have yet to confirm the existence of operational or financial links between the local IS loyalists and the militant group’s home base in Iraq and Syria. However, the number of local militants flying the IS flag or claiming to be acting in the group’s name has increased dramatically.
Some of these are believed to be former Taliban fighters who have broken with the organization and adopted the IS flag out of convenience. But at the very least, authorities say recent events reveal the growing presence and power of factions who emulate the Islamic State group’s ideals and seek to mimic its tactics.
In some parts of the country, the extremists have actually begun controlling territory – executing Taliban loyalists, banning girls from school and killing dozens of civilians for resisting their harsh rule, according to Afghan officials.
On Thursday, U.S. Gen. Philip Breedlove, NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe, called IS an “emergent threat” which now occupies “pockets in numerous places around the nation.”
He said that while IS loyalists were fighting the Taliban in some regions, their “combat power is less concerning than that they are here making inroads with the people, recruiting.”
One of the first serious footholds in Afghanistan for the IS loyalists appears to be in the eastern province of Nangarhar, along the Pakistani border, according to two members of the Afghan parliament.
“Daesh in Nangarhar is growing and getting stronger compared with a couple of months ago. The people of the region are becoming increasingly concerned,” said Nangarhar MP Zahi Qadir, using an alternative acronym for the group. “Daesh have told local people to take up arms against their enemies, by which they mean the Taliban, or leave. In the areas where there are Daesh fighters, the schools have been closed and the Daesh fighters have beaten and abducted teachers.”
A second parliament member, Hazrat Ali, told The Associated Press that IS loyalists in Nangarhar have banned girls from attending school. Militants have gone door-to-door asking families about unmarried girls and “threatening to marry them to Daesh fighters if they are not married off by their families soon,” he said. “Where Daesh exists, there is no life, people are enslaved.”
In August, a video was released by purported IS loyalists in Afghanistan showing the brutal killing of a group of men accused of being Taliban sympathizers.
In the video, the 10 blindfolded men are made to kneel on top of buried explosives, which are detonated underneath them. The video could not be independently verified, but Hazrat Ali declared it authentic and said the incident took place in Nangarhar’s Achin district.
A United Nations report prepared ahead of this month’s annual debate on Afghanistan by the U.N. Security Council states that in Nangarhar province, “groups loyal to ISIL and the Taliban are currently clashing in a struggle for resources generated by provincial drug production and trafficking,” using another alternative acronym for the IS group.
At stake in the IS-Taliban power struggle is more than just territory. Afghanistan contains billions of dollars in assets – mainly opium that produces most of the world’s heroin, but also minerals including gold, marble, chromite, lapis lazuli and gemstones.
Security analyst Ali Mohammad Ali said gaining control of Afghanistan’s lucrative resources is one of the main objectives of the Islamic State group, and its loyalists are competing with the Taliban like “organized criminal mafia gangs” for control of billions of dollars in assets.
