Pakistan may use ISIS against the Taliban in Afghanistan

Taliban ISIS

More than 100 days ago the Taliban grabbed power in Afghanistan and took no time to realise it was a crown of thorns. All the world leaders who held more than one dozen conferences on Afghanistan looked away when they (the Taliban) pleaded for recognition of their government because they would not keep any of their promise made during talks in Doha with the United States during 2019-20.

Perhaps the Taliban took these talks for a big joke. Perhaps they knew the execution of the promise, about inclusive government, human rights and the rights of women and their education and jobs will denude them of all which they claim to stand for.

In other words, keeping these promises will be self-effacing for them at the cost of their version of Sharia.

The world has taken note that the Taliban have so far failed to keep their promises to keep terrorist organisations out of Afghanistan. They had promised in Doha that they would not allow Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS/IS/Daesh) to function in Afghanistan.

Al-Qaeda has been very close to the Taliban. Taliban’s founding chief Mullah Omar had allowed Osama bin Laden to stay in Afghanistan permanently along with his Al-Qaeda terrorists.

Unconfirmed reports say Omar had also given his daughter in marriage to Osama, known for siring children. But Osama brought all the miseries to Afghanistan when he hatched a conspiracy on Afghan soil to attack the United States in Washington and New York, killing thousands of people and destroying property worth billions of dollars on September 11, 2001, popularly known as 9/11.

The Taliban must have been aware of this conspiracy when it was being hatched. The Americans made a very simple demand that the Taliban must expel Al-Qaeda from Afghanistan. Omar adamantly refused.

Two miserable consequences followed. One, Americans bombed out the Taliban government, killing in the process thousands of innocent Afghans. The second result of the 9/11 foolhardiness turned out to be most unexpected after 20 years when the Taliban recaptured power in Afghanistan.

The next of kin of the victims of the 9/11 attack in New York demanded that they be given compensation from the seven billion dollars of Afghanistan which the US government has frozen. Ten years ago a court had already given its verdict in their favour.

The Taliban who have been claiming this frozen money cannot plead innocence in the 9/11 terror.

Whatever be Al-Qaeda’s strength in Afghanistan currently, there are no reports of Taliban’s any move to evict them. And, of course, they are not strong enough to touch global terrorists of the Islamic State(IS) of Khursan who dared the Taliban government in Kabul by carrying out weekly terrorist activities mostly against Shias in their mosques, in their homes or market-places and militancy hospitals.

The Taliban’s actions against them have proved ineffective.

ISIS has killed close to 200 innocent people. Poor Shias are looking up to the Taliban knowing they are also anti-Shia.

The Taliban and ISIS have strong similarities and weak differences. Both claim to be crusaders of Sharia and conduct their jihad in the most barbarous ways – from the civilised point of view. We have seen Taliban’s barbarity when they were in power for about six years and again when they were out of power for about 20 years.

The rise of the Sunni Islamic State in Shia majority Iraq in 2014 was like the advent of Dooms Day. They mercilessly killed men, women and children and converted non-Muslims on the point of gun.

Converted women were forced to have circumcision, horrifying and humiliating for grown up females.

ISIS then moved to Syria to kill and plunder. They claimed they were reviving Caliphate of Islam. Abu Bakr Baghdadi was appointed the caliphs. Thousands of boys and girls either joined ISIS in Syria or secretly worked for it in their own countries-especially in Europe.

Baghdadi claimed he was the global leader of all Muslims. The Taliban rejected this claim at once.

ISIS rejected the Taliban’s Islamic credentials and called them a deviant group which protests shrines.

The IS’s virulent propaganda against the Taliban influenced a number of hardcore and dissenting Taliban to defect to it. Factionalism and defections to ISIS were weakening the Taliban.

They gained some strength and respectability when the US started peace talks with them in Doha.

Pakistan has been very fishy about ISIS presence in the country even though many young had pledged their allegiance to it.

Madrasas (Islamic schools) of famous Lal Masjid had accepted the Caliphate of Baghdadi. Pakistan Navy tribunal sentenced five naval officers to death for joining ISIS and attacking the Karachi dockyard on its orders in 2014.

This incident was a proof of ISIS presence in Pakistan.

Many terrorists/militants funded by the Pakistani intelligence agency (ISI) are also said to be followers of ISIS, including those from Hafiz Saeed’s Jamat-ud Dawa (JuD) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM). Thus, it is easy for Pakistan to manipulate ISIS against the Taliban when the latter tries to be assertive.

But Pakistan is trying to confound its confused countrymen by trying one more lie on them, that supposedly ISIS is controlled by India and that it has nothing to do with Islam.

By Samuel Baid.

Guest Contributor

This piece was written for Greek City Times by a Guest Contributor