Afghan Conflict: Russian Political Leader Meets With Massoud

[Insaanistan]

Clashes Between Different Baradar Supporters and Haqqani Network Reported in Herat, DAESH-K Claiming to Have Killed 4 Taliba

[Fahran]

Clashes Between Different Baradar Supporters and Haqqani Network Reported in Herat, DAESH-K Claiming to Have Killed 4 Taliba

Apparently, IS-K is the most prominent insurgency in the country at the moment. There are reports they've been ambushing and beheading Taliban fighters and blowing up mosques. I'm trying to find the article the Economist published on the subject.

EDIT: And paywalled. Oof.

[The Two Jerseys]

US nearing formal agreement to use Pakistan's airspace to carry out military and intelligence operations in Afghanistan

The Biden administration has told lawmakers that the US is nearing a formalized agreement with Pakistan for use of its airspace to conduct military and intelligence operations in Afghanistan, according to three sources familiar with the details of a classified briefing with members of Congress that took place on Friday morning.

Pakistan has expressed a desire to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in exchange for assistance with its own counterterrorism efforts and help in managing the relationship with India, one of the sources said. But the negotiations are ongoing, another source said, and the terms of the agreement, which has not been finalized, could still change.
The briefing comes as the White House is still trying to ensure that it can carry out counterterrorism operations against ISIS-K and other adversaries in Afghanistan now that there is no longer a US presence on the ground for the first time in two decades after the NATO withdrawal from the country. The US military currently uses Pakistan's airspace to reach Afghanistan as part of ongoing intelligence-gathering efforts, but there is no formal agreement in place to ensure continued access to a critical piece of airspace necessary for the US to reach Afghanistan. The air corridor through Pakistan to Afghanistan may become even more critical if and when the US resumes flights into Kabul to fly out American citizens and others who remain in the country. The third source said that an agreement was discussed when US officials visited Pakistan, but it's not yet clear what Pakistan wants or how much the US would be willing to give in return.

With no formal agreement currently in place, the US runs the risk of Pakistan refusing entry to US military aircraft and drones en route to Afghanistan.

A Pentagon spokesman said the Defense Department does not comment on closed briefings due to security classifications. CNN has reached out to the National Security Council and Pakistan Embassy in Washington for comment. Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement saying "no such understanding was in place," and that "Pakistan and the U.S. have longstanding cooperation on regional security and counter-terrorism and the two sides remain engaged in regular consultations." The State Department declined to comment.

Might as well tell the Taliban what our air operations are...

[Lady Victory]

US nearing formal agreement to use Pakistan's airspace to carry out military and intelligence operations in Afghanistan

The Biden administration has told lawmakers that the US is nearing a formalized agreement with Pakistan for use of its airspace to conduct military and intelligence operations in Afghanistan, according to three sources familiar with the details of a classified briefing with members of Congress that took place on Friday morning.

Pakistan has expressed a desire to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in exchange for assistance with its own counterterrorism efforts and help in managing the relationship with India, one of the sources said. But the negotiations are ongoing, another source said, and the terms of the agreement, which has not been finalized, could still change.
The briefing comes as the White House is still trying to ensure that it can carry out counterterrorism operations against ISIS-K and other adversaries in Afghanistan now that there is no longer a US presence on the ground for the first time in two decades after the NATO withdrawal from the country. The US military currently uses Pakistan's airspace to reach Afghanistan as part of ongoing intelligence-gathering efforts, but there is no formal agreement in place to ensure continued access to a critical piece of airspace necessary for the US to reach Afghanistan. The air corridor through Pakistan to Afghanistan may become even more critical if and when the US resumes flights into Kabul to fly out American citizens and others who remain in the country. The third source said that an agreement was discussed when US officials visited Pakistan, but it's not yet clear what Pakistan wants or how much the US would be willing to give in return.

With no formal agreement currently in place, the US runs the risk of Pakistan refusing entry to US military aircraft and drones en route to Afghanistan.

A Pentagon spokesman said the Defense Department does not comment on closed briefings due to security classifications. CNN has reached out to the National Security Council and Pakistan Embassy in Washington for comment. Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement saying "no such understanding was in place," and that "Pakistan and the U.S. have longstanding cooperation on regional security and counter-terrorism and the two sides remain engaged in regular consultations." The State Department declined to comment.

USA collaborating with it's own enemies again. It's a wonder we ever acquired an empire in the first place.

[Comerciante]

USA collaborating with it's own enemies again. It's a wonder we ever acquired an empire in the first place.

If I've learned anything from history sometimes the stars just align and what powers that be are looking the wrong way at the right time.

[Insaanistan]

NRF Raising Afghan Flag in Deh-e-Salah (Account Followed by Ali Maisam Nazary)

[Northern Socialist Council Republics]

-snip-

The US seems to do - and seems to have done since the 19th Century - this thing of supporting forces which are hostile to it in the hopes that those forces will be more annoying to the United States’ rivals than they are to the United States itself.

Which... I don’t know enough US or world history to decisively say one way or another, but has that ever actually worked? It seems to me that the Cold War, at least, was won by clobbering he Soviets with the blunt economic productivity of the North Atlantic region, not by the dozens of morally reprehensible puppet dictatorships that the US was backing at the time.

[Insaanistan]

“There is no good terrorist or bad terrorist—a terrorist is a terrorist”: Ahmad Massoud’s Uncle, Ahmad Wali Massoud, Weighs in on Situation in Afghanistan, Says Khalilzad Responsible for Country’s Situation

[Kowani]

House unanimously passes legislation to posthumously award Congressional Gold Medals in commemoration to the 13 soldiers who died in the Aug. 26th\ Hamid Karzai Airport bombings

[Arvenia]

House unanimously passes legislation to posthumously award Congressional Gold Medals in commemoration to the 13 soldiers who died in the Aug. 26th\ Hamid Karzai Airport bombings

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1N5lZw7e78

[Insaanistan]

NRF Fighters in Balkh Release Video Claiming Around 50% of the Province to be Under Their Control
NRF Reportedly Active in Badakhshan Province
Iran “Expresses Concern” for Ahmad Massoud’s Safety, Amid Calls for it to Aid Fellow Shiās and Persian Spealers Against the Taliban

[Insaanistan]

If you want to watch the whole thing, go ahead. If you just want to see what I’m talking about, skip to about 12:00 in the vid.
The video was uploaded on the 25th of this month.
These Talib had consented to a foreign media tour and claimed fighting had ceased. The reporters soon heard gunshots in the distanced and asked again if fighting had really stopped. The Taliban told them it had.
Later, the Talibs were seen rushing in heavy numbers to their vehicles, because as the reporters would later find out, the NRF launched an attack and as they put it “gained the upper hand, and inflicted heavy casualties against the Taliban.”

Ah, I love it when people get caught lying.

[Kowani]

Refugee resettlement not going swimmingly

Some children who were evacuated from Afghanistan and are being cared for at a Chicago shelter for immigrant minors have hurt themselves, harmed other children or threatened staff. Others have tried to escape or talked about wanting to die. Some have required psychiatric hospitalization.

These events at the shelter were described by three employees and other people familiar with the conditions there, as well as being detailed in police records and internal documents obtained by ProPublica.

Employees at the shelter, which is operated by the nonprofit Heartland Alliance, say they are overwhelmed and ill-equipped to care for the roughly 40 Afghan children and teens placed there by the U.S. government, many of them traumatized by war in their homeland and their hasty evacuation. Some children who were evacuated from Afghanistan and are being cared for at a Chicago shelter for immigrant minors have hurt themselves, harmed other children or threatened staff. Others have tried to escape or talked about wanting to die. Some have required psychiatric hospitalization.

These events at the shelter were described by three employees and other people familiar with the conditions there, as well as being detailed in police records and internal documents obtained by ProPublica.

Employees at the shelter, which is operated by the nonprofit Heartland Alliance, say they are overwhelmed and ill-equipped to care for the roughly 40 Afghan children and teens placed there by the U.S. government, many of them traumatized by war in their homeland and their hasty evacuation. “We don’t know if [the children are] saying they’re going to self harm until we finally get a translator on the line,” said one worker at the shelter in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood on the city’s South Side. “They could be telling us something. ... We try to guess. We try to communicate with cues, sign language, making motions like if you’re hungry or they need this or that.”

Altogether, Heartland officials said they were caring for 79 Afghan children across four Chicago shelters on Wednesday. But the shelter in Bronzeville, the largest in Heartland’s portfolio, is where workers are reporting problems.

As of Wednesday, 41 of the 55 children and teens at that shelter were from Afghanistan, records show. Of those, 25 had been at the facility for at least 50 days, while 15 had been there for at least 60 days. ProPublica reported in 2018 on how prolonged stays in Heartland’s shelters led to despair, confusion and suicidal ideation among children.

No organization in the country is sheltering more Afghan children than Heartland at the moment. A total of 186 Afghan youth were in the government’s care as of Friday. (Federal officials did not respond to requests for updated figures this week.)

The children are among the tens of thousands of Afghans brought to the U.S. after America’s widely criticized military pullout from the country following two decades of war. In the chaos, many children were separated from parents or adult relatives at Taliban checkpoints and airports, or later at U.S. military bases in other countries. Many wound up on planes alone, according to workers and advocates who have spoken to the children.

And unlike many of the Central American children who typically pass through the shelter system with a plan and a destination in mind — and the knowledge from relatives’ experiences to prepare them — these young Afghans had no idea what to expect when they arrived. Some have no relatives or family friends here to take them in. Many didn’t even want to come here and are worried about their families back home, the workers and advocates said.

“These Afghan youth are experiencing very high trauma burdens and mental health issues from living in a war-torn country, exacerbated by their chaotic and untraditional arrival alone in a foreign land,” Heartland said in a statement. “Something as simple as a phone call home is highly emotional …. What if my parents don’t answer? Are they dead? Missing? Will I ever see them again? What if the Taliban finds me here?”

Heartland officials said that, from the start, sheltering the children has been a challenge.

“Details of arrivals, governmental guidelines, and other information has been limited or changing, literally by the hour,” they said in the statement. “National, federal, state, local, and nonprofit organizations are trying to operate within a seriously under-resourced and broken infrastructure dismantled by the previous federal administration.”

Workers at the Bronzeville shelter said they understand that factors beyond Heartland’s control are largely to blame for the problems. But they say they are disappointed in the response so far from both Heartland and the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is responsible for the shelter system.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees ORR, said the “vast majority” of the more than 900 Afghan children who have come to the U.S. as unaccompanied minors have been placed with sponsors. The spokesperson said the agency is working to ensure children “are placed with care providers that are able to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate services or unified directly with a vetted sponsor.”

Heartland officials said they provide “24/7 safe and welcoming residential care that includes food, clothing, shelter, schooling, and basic medical care — until we are able to safely unite them with family or a sponsor here in the U.S.” Several of the children who were at the Bronzeville shelter over the past two months have already been placed with relatives or other sponsors, workers said.

Heartland, a large nonprofit known for a range of anti-poverty and humanitarian work in Illinois and around the world, “was selected to receive youth coming from Afghanistan given our long experience in caring for unaccompanied children from outside of the Northern Triangle” in Central America, organization officials said in the statement.

The Bronzeville facility is a former nursing home licensed to house up to 250 children on its four floors. Over the years, at least a dozen current and former workers have told ProPublica they felt conflicted working there because of the conditions; they wanted to help immigrant children but have come to view the shelter as a detention center.

What has been happening at the Heartland shelter in recent weeks is a contrast to operations at an emergency facility for Afghan children in Michigan. An immigration attorney who has spent time at that shelter, where about 50 Afghan minors are being cared for, said she had not seen or heard of problems on the same scale as those Heartland workers have described. That campus-like site, complete with residential cottages spread across green space, is operated by the nonprofit social service agency Starr Commonwealth.

Almost from the start, there has been one interpreter in every cottage who spoke Pashto, Dari or both, said Jennifer Vanegas, a supervising attorney at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center’s program for immigrant children.

“So much can get in the way [of phone-based interpretation]: a bad connection, a dropped call,” she said. “It’s very impersonal. It’s much better when you can have another person in the room to interpret, look at kids and connect.”

Vanegas said she and her colleagues worry most about those children who have been there for longer than a few weeks, as the site “was not set up to be a long-term facility” and isn’t equipped to provide them the culturally and linguistically appropriate psychosocial mental services they need. So far, the lengths of stay have ranged from 10 days to about 50, she said.


In addition to Starr Commonwealth and Heartland, another network of shelters for immigrant children in Illinois has taken in a smaller number of Afghan children. Sister Catherine Ryan, the executive director of Maryville Academy, said last week that ORR had placed about a dozen Afghan children at the organization’s shelters in and around Chicago. About half of those children, she said, have been sent to live with relatives or in other placements.

The Afghan children started arriving at the Heartland shelter in Bronzeville around Aug. 23, according to records and interviews with workers. Most are boys in their teens, but workers said the youngest they received was 2. Records indicate that once the Afghan youth started arriving, the facility stopped receiving children and teens from other countries, though it’s not clear why.

It’s unusual for the shelter to receive so many children at once who don’t speak a language spoken by staff members, according to workers and people familiar with the situation. Many of the workers speak Spanish.

To communicate with the Afghan youth, workers rely on cell phones to call interpreters, but they said there aren’t enough phones. Heartland said last week it distributed 61 devices to translate information into multiple languages, including Dari and Pashto, across its four shelters, and that it will distribute 39 more this week.

Workers said they sometimes ask children who speak some English to serve as interpreters. But that can be problematic when discussing sensitive topics. Workers said they have asked for English-Dari and English-Pashto dictionaries.

In an email sent to shelter staff last week, David Sinski, executive director of Heartland Human Care and Services, the branch of Heartland that runs the shelters, wrote that the organization was working with ORR to get translators on site and to have an Afghan employee from another part of the organization connect virtually with children and staff.

In spite of Heartland’s efforts, the shelter has been the scene of a series of troubling incidents, described in police records, internal documents and interviews. In emails sent to management and staff last week, one shelter worker wrote that the young Afghans were “displaying behavior that I have not seen in my almost 5 years at [Heartland].” Another wrote that police and ambulance workers had been on site “a record amount over the last few days and weeks alone.”

A Chicago police service log shows dozens of calls for service to the Bronzeville address in the past five weeks, including 15 coded for emergency medical services, three for suicide attempts or threats, five for batteries or assaults, and two for mental health disturbances.

An incident report dated Oct. 1 describes a boy who was hospitalized after “cutting his arms with an unknown object.” A week later, police wrote another report on a boy who was hospitalized after cutting his forearm with a bottle cap and throwing items. The boy was upset about not being allowed to make a video call “and instead was given a regular phone call,” officers wrote. Neither incident was life-threatening. The reports don’t explicitly mention whether the children are from Afghanistan, though two shelter workers said they were.

Call logs for other emergency dispatch services were not available before publication.

Meanwhile, an internal report describes a 14-year-old boy threatening workers with a pair of scissors. Two emails describe instances of boys verbally accosting female staff. Other reports detail workers having to restrain a boy who tried to break a window and, in another incident, hit another boy.

Heartland officials acknowledged the challenges of meeting the children’s psychiatric needs. They said staff had met with city and state officials to “address significant systemic barriers to accessing psychiatric assessments for children in need of in-patient care” and will begin individual and group therapy for some of the children. The organization said it has been building connections with the local Afghan community and offers Friday prayers and weekly visits to a mosque, and is “integrating many cultural comforts like foods and activities that the youth are requesting.” Heartland acknowledged that the work is “heartbreaking for these kids and very difficult for our staff.” Officials said they “facilitate weekly staff discussions to address current stressors” and are seeking resources to help combat caregiver fatigue.

“We don’t blame our staff for being frustrated or angry,” the statement said. “The broken system is letting everyone down.”

[Insaanistan]

NRF Officially Recieves Authorization to Open an Office in D.C.

[Saiwania]

Refugee resettlement not going swimmingly

Its proving my criticisms correct. Send them back to Afghanistan, where they should've stayed. The Taliban is their rightful government.

[Insaanistan]

Refugee resettlement not going swimmingly

Its proving my criticisms correct. Send them back to Afghanistan, where they should've stayed. The Taliban is their rightful government.

A daily dose of Islamophobia, xenophobia and sadism, brought to you by Saiwania.

[Latorik]

Refugee resettlement not going swimmingly

Its proving my criticisms correct. Send them back to Afghanistan, where they should've stayed. The Taliban is their rightful government.

You have some of the worst takes I've ever seen

[Arvenia]

Refugee resettlement not going swimmingly

Its proving my criticisms correct. Send them back to Afghanistan, where they should've stayed. The Taliban is their rightful government.

You should avoid making such statement.

[Insaanistan]

NRF Warns Taliban if They Don’t Fighting and Forcibly Displacing People “We Will Expel you Like we Did the Soviets.”

[Fahran]

Refugee resettlement not going swimmingly

Its proving my criticisms correct. Send them back to Afghanistan, where they should've stayed. The Taliban is their rightful government.

I feel like your criticisms were a little bit different from "we're not investing enough in resettlement efforts to ensure that traumatized children are not neglected and further traumatized."

[Kowani]

Claims that Taliban Emir and Supreme Leader Sheikh Haibatullah Akhunzada made his first public appearance in years today at a Madrassa in Kandahar

[Herador]

Its proving my criticisms correct. Send them back to Afghanistan, where they should've stayed. The Taliban is their rightful government.

I feel like your criticisms were a little bit different from "we're not investing enough in resettlement efforts to ensure that traumatized children are not neglected and further traumatized."

That doesn't blame the brown people enough, though. Gotta find a way to blame the ethnicities.

[Fahran]

That doesn't blame the brown people enough, though. Gotta find a way to blame the ethnicities.

I mean... you can absolutely blame the culture that exists in Afghanistan for a lot of this, but that's a bit different from blaming individual Afghans. It'd probably still get you called a bigot in many quarters though, but I think the bigotry is probably a little justified when the cultural conventions are creating an outflow of refugees terrified of what the newly established political culture will mean for their future prospects.

[Kowani]

From Afghan Army to ISIS

Some former members of Afghanistan’s U.S.-trained intelligence service and elite military units—now abandoned by their American patrons and hunted by the Taliban—have enlisted in the only force currently challenging the country’s new rulers: Islamic State.
The number of defectors joining the terrorist group is relatively small, but growing, according to people who know these men, to former Afghan security officials and to the Taliban. Importantly, these new recruits bring to Islamic State critical expertise in intelligence-gathering and warfare techniques, potentially strengthening the extremist organization’s ability to contest Taliban supremacy.
An Afghan national army officer who commanded the military’s weapons and ammunition depot in Gardez, the capital of southeastern Paktia province, joined the extremist group’s regional affiliate, Islamic State-Khorasan Province, and was killed a week ago in a clash with Taliban fighters, according to a former Afghan official who knew him.
The former official said several other men he knew, all members of the former Afghan republic’s intelligence and military, also joined Islamic State after the Taliban searched their homes and demanded that they present themselves to the country’s new authorities.
A resident of Qarabagh district just north of Kabul said his cousin, a former senior member of Afghanistan’s special forces, disappeared in September and was now part of an Islamic State cell. Four other members of the Afghan national army that the man knew have enlisted in the group, also known as ISIS-K, in recent weeks, he said.
“In some areas, ISIS has become very attractive” to former members of Afghan security and defense forces “who have been left behind,” said Rahmatullah Nabil, a former head of Afghanistan’s spy agency, the National Directorate of Security, who left the country shortly before the Taliban takeover. “If there were a resistance, they would have joined the resistance.” But, he said: “For the time being, ISIS is the only other armed group.” Taliban forces in early September stamped out a nascent resistance movement in the Panjshir valley led by Ahmad Massoud, a son of anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Massoud who was assassinated by al Qaeda in 2001. Resistance leaders then fled abroad.
The Taliban have long alleged that Islamic State-Khorasan Province was a creation of Afghanistan’s intelligence service and the U.S. that aimed to sow division within the Islamist insurgency, a claim denied by Washington and by Kabul’s former government.
Hundreds of thousands of former Afghan republic intelligence officers, soldiers and police personnel are unemployed and afraid for their lives despite pledges of amnesty from the Taliban. Only a fraction of them, mostly in the National Directorate of Security, have returned to work under Taliban supervision. Like nearly all other Afghan government employees, they haven’t been paid for months.
“It’s exactly how it started in Iraq—with disenchanted Saddam Hussein generals,” a senior Western official warned. “You have to be careful.” The U.S. disbanded Iraq’s security forces after the 2003 invasion of the country. Often with weapons stashed at home and with years of combat expertise, they provided a ready pool of recruits for militant groups, including al Qaeda and the precursor of Islamic State.
In addition to protection from the Taliban, Islamic State is offering significant amounts of cash to its new members in Afghanistan, security officials say. In recent Senate testimony, Colin Kahl, U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, warned that Islamic State in Afghanistan could generate the capacity to attack the West and allies within six to 12 months.
While the Taliban are highly motivated to go after Islamic State, he added, “Their ability to do so, I think, is to be determined.”
[...]
The group killed 200 Afghans and 13 members of the U.S. armed forces at Kabul airport in August, and has since then carried out a spate of attacks on the Taliban, mostly in the eastern province of Nangarhar, but now increasingly often in Kabul. The group also claimed responsibility for bombing Shiite mosques in the cities of Kunduz and Kandahar in October. Those attacks killed well over 100 worshipers.
While the U.S. has begun providing some intelligence on Islamic State to the Taliban, Taliban officials are loath to admit that cooperation and generally dismiss the severity of Islamic State’s challenge.
“We are not faced with a threat nor are we worried about them,” said Mawlawi Zubair, a senior Taliban commander whose 750 men oversee southwestern Kabul and who operates out of the capital’s third police district headquarters. “There is no need, not even a tiny need, for us to seek assistance from anyone against ISIS.”
The area under his supervision includes the Kabul zoo, where a man believed to be an Islamic State militant recently threw a hand grenade into a crowd of Taliban foot soldiers. Former members of the Afghan security forces are “100%” involved in such Islamic State attacks, Mr. Zubair said.
He said Islamic State is also feeding on growing resentment over the country’s economic meltdown that followed the Taliban’s Aug. 15 takeover.
“In the current situation, we are not dealing with a few difficulties, we are facing many,” Mr. Zubair said. “If we get rid of all our economic and administrative problems, ISIS will disappear in 15 days in all of Afghanistan.”

[Lady Victory]

From Afghan Army to ISIS

Some former members of Afghanistan’s U.S.-trained intelligence service and elite military units—now abandoned by their American patrons and hunted by the Taliban—have enlisted in the only force currently challenging the country’s new rulers: Islamic State.
The number of defectors joining the terrorist group is relatively small, but growing, according to people who know these men, to former Afghan security officials and to the Taliban. Importantly, these new recruits bring to Islamic State critical expertise in intelligence-gathering and warfare techniques, potentially strengthening the extremist organization’s ability to contest Taliban supremacy.
An Afghan national army officer who commanded the military’s weapons and ammunition depot in Gardez, the capital of southeastern Paktia province, joined the extremist group’s regional affiliate, Islamic State-Khorasan Province, and was killed a week ago in a clash with Taliban fighters, according to a former Afghan official who knew him.
The former official said several other men he knew, all members of the former Afghan republic’s intelligence and military, also joined Islamic State after the Taliban searched their homes and demanded that they present themselves to the country’s new authorities.
A resident of Qarabagh district just north of Kabul said his cousin, a former senior member of Afghanistan’s special forces, disappeared in September and was now part of an Islamic State cell. Four other members of the Afghan national army that the man knew have enlisted in the group, also known as ISIS-K, in recent weeks, he said.
“In some areas, ISIS has become very attractive” to former members of Afghan security and defense forces “who have been left behind,” said Rahmatullah Nabil, a former head of Afghanistan’s spy agency, the National Directorate of Security, who left the country shortly before the Taliban takeover. “If there were a resistance, they would have joined the resistance.” But, he said: “For the time being, ISIS is the only other armed group.” Taliban forces in early September stamped out a nascent resistance movement in the Panjshir valley led by Ahmad Massoud, a son of anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Massoud who was assassinated by al Qaeda in 2001. Resistance leaders then fled abroad.
The Taliban have long alleged that Islamic State-Khorasan Province was a creation of Afghanistan’s intelligence service and the U.S. that aimed to sow division within the Islamist insurgency, a claim denied by Washington and by Kabul’s former government.
Hundreds of thousands of former Afghan republic intelligence officers, soldiers and police personnel are unemployed and afraid for their lives despite pledges of amnesty from the Taliban. Only a fraction of them, mostly in the National Directorate of Security, have returned to work under Taliban supervision. Like nearly all other Afghan government employees, they haven’t been paid for months.
“It’s exactly how it started in Iraq—with disenchanted Saddam Hussein generals,” a senior Western official warned. “You have to be careful.” The U.S. disbanded Iraq’s security forces after the 2003 invasion of the country. Often with weapons stashed at home and with years of combat expertise, they provided a ready pool of recruits for militant groups, including al Qaeda and the precursor of Islamic State.
In addition to protection from the Taliban, Islamic State is offering significant amounts of cash to its new members in Afghanistan, security officials say. In recent Senate testimony, Colin Kahl, U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, warned that Islamic State in Afghanistan could generate the capacity to attack the West and allies within six to 12 months.
While the Taliban are highly motivated to go after Islamic State, he added, “Their ability to do so, I think, is to be determined.”
[...]
The group killed 200 Afghans and 13 members of the U.S. armed forces at Kabul airport in August, and has since then carried out a spate of attacks on the Taliban, mostly in the eastern province of Nangarhar, but now increasingly often in Kabul. The group also claimed responsibility for bombing Shiite mosques in the cities of Kunduz and Kandahar in October. Those attacks killed well over 100 worshipers.
While the U.S. has begun providing some intelligence on Islamic State to the Taliban, Taliban officials are loath to admit that cooperation and generally dismiss the severity of Islamic State’s challenge.
“We are not faced with a threat nor are we worried about them,” said Mawlawi Zubair, a senior Taliban commander whose 750 men oversee southwestern Kabul and who operates out of the capital’s third police district headquarters. “There is no need, not even a tiny need, for us to seek assistance from anyone against ISIS.”
The area under his supervision includes the Kabul zoo, where a man believed to be an Islamic State militant recently threw a hand grenade into a crowd of Taliban foot soldiers. Former members of the Afghan security forces are “100%” involved in such Islamic State attacks, Mr. Zubair said.
He said Islamic State is also feeding on growing resentment over the country’s economic meltdown that followed the Taliban’s Aug. 15 takeover.
“In the current situation, we are not dealing with a few difficulties, we are facing many,” Mr. Zubair said. “If we get rid of all our economic and administrative problems, ISIS will disappear in 15 days in all of Afghanistan.”

Thanks Biden.