More than fifty people have died in several suicide bombings over the past 24 hours on the African continent – with Somalia recording the highest number of casualties.

Mourners packed a Cairo church on Monday for the funeral of the 24 victims, including 6 children, of the Sunday’s bombing of a Coptic cathedral. Most of the victims were women.

The attack on the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Churches is one of the deadliest on Egypt’s Christian minority in recent years.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has announced three days of mourning. Sisi who attended the funeral has vowed justice. He is fighting battles on several fronts. His economic reforms have angered the poor.

In the Somali capital, Mogadishu, 29 people died when a suicide bomb exploded at the entrance to the port. At least 50 people were injured.

Al Shabaab has claimed responsibility for the attack. The organisation wants to impose its strict version of Islam on the Horn of Africa state, and drive out African Union peacekeepers.

Two girls thought to be only seven or eight years old, conducted a double suicide attack in the north-eastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri. Three people were killed and 17 others were wounded.

It appears the second explosion was triggered slightly later as bystanders were helping the wounded.

Boko Haram has been waging an insurgency for seven years, trying to establish an Islamic state.

Some 15 000 people have been killed and more than 2 million have fled their homes.

sabc.co.za

tribune.com.pk

Like 9/11 for New Yorkers, the Paris attacks of November 2015 have become that rare thing for city slickers — a topic of conversation in which everyone can participate. There are two million Parisians, each of whom has a story about the night suicide bombers and gunmen killed 130 people at cafés, restaurants, the Stade de France and the Bataclan music hall.

Some offer a poignant mix of tumult and tragedy, like the one my high school friend tells of diving under a table at a café when a terrorist opened fire on drinkers with an assault rifle. (She performed CPR on a shooting victim who ended up dying from loss of blood). Others, like mine, are less riveting. After making sure my friends and family were safe, I got to work covering the story. The tales all have one thing in common: a moment in which the person recounting it is struck by the enormity of what occurred.

In my case, it came more than 24 hours after the attacks. After news of the shooting broke, my girlfriend and I hunkered in our apartment: me to write and report, her to comfort and host friends who kept dropping by. It was only the next day, when a couple of German friends called and suggested getting together, that we ventured out into post-attack Paris. Our street is usually a party strip. It was utterly silent. Bars, restaurants and hotels that do brisk business even under driving rain were closed and empty. The scene — eerily quiet, cinematically barren — yanked me out of the story I had been writing and into the reality of the tragedy that had engulfed the city.

As we turned left onto Avenue de Clichy, I tried to joke about it, noting that it looked like the perfect setting for a sequel to the zombie movie “28 Days Later.” My girlfriend didn’t laugh. An awful thought crowded my mind: The terrorists had won. With a few cell phones, Kalashnikov rifles and suicide vests, they had silenced this proud and insolent city and reduced its residents to cowering in their apartments when they should have been making noise in the streets.

Once we got to our friends’ place, just a few blocks away, the mood lightened. We drank, shared our stories of the night, and even managed a few relieved laughs. But there our conversation had a melancholy undertone: We kept coming back to whether the violence would trigger a civil war. Fortunately, it didn’t. Neither those killings nor any of the bloodshed that followed escalated into all-out conflict between French Christians and Muslims (though the head of domestic intelligence warned in testimony to a parliamentary committee this past summer that it was a possibility). But they primed us for the possibility that tragedy could strike at any moment, and they made all Parisians inordinately vigilant.

In the metro, people stared harshly at young men wearing beards, or, more ominously, beards paired with tracksuits and backpacks (the “jihadist look,” according to surveillance footage captured of two assailants who had ridden the metro after the attacks.) All of us suddenly became security experts who knew how to identify a soft target. Some of us — or maybe it was just me — would occasionally be stricken by sudden rushes of sadness. When I first went to see a movie at a theater a few weeks after the attacks, I felt proud to be relaxed enough to be keeping up my old habits. But when a young man entered the screening room late, I was gripped by terror. I had to reason with myself that, by staying until the end of “Crazy Amy,” I was doing my part in France’s fight against terrorism.

A year later, are we still sitting on the edge of our seats, half-expecting a terrorist to enter the room? No. Take a walk on any nightlife stretch in the French capital and you will see café terraces full of young people drinking and smoking as patriotically as before. The fact that Parisians returned to their old haunts so rapidly after the attacks was widely interpreted as proof of the French Republic’s resilience in the face of terror. The Moveable Feast was still on the move. The City of Light was shining as brightly as ever. Take that, terrorists, we said, raising our glasses of wine.

But it would be wrong to say that France simply snapped back to the way it was before the attacks. The place has changed more profoundly than most of its residents are willing to admit. Repeated acts of violence have robbed the French of their presumption of safety. Despite admirable efforts to respond to the terrorist threat in a measured way, to avoid reaching Israeli levels of obsession with security, France has mutated into a different version of itself: angrier, ready for more violence and locked into increasingly hostile and polarizing debates.

The most shocking thing about terrorism in France in 2016 is that terrorism is no longer shocking. It can be terrifying, distressing and infuriating, sure. But the steady drumroll of attacks that started in early 2015 — from the Charlie Hebdo and Bataclan attacks in Paris to the massacre on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice to the murder of a Catholic priest in his church in Normandy — have burned away our capacity for shock. Instead of reacting to attacks with surprise, the French nation now responds with ever shorter loops of grief, outrage and calls to hang the bad guys.

The kumbaya spirit of the post-Charlie Hebdo period, when more than a million people marched behind a procession of European leaders to proclaim their love of free speech, is gone. After a man killed 86 people by driving a cargo truck into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, opposition politicians didn’t wait 24 hours before slinging mud at the government, accusing it of “criminal negligence” for having let the attack happen. Needless to say, there was no new march — the state of emergency made sure of that.

France may feel that it looks the same in the mirror, but the rest of the world sees it differently. At recent a dinner in New York, I was asked by a worldly American whether it was dangerous where I live. My reflex was to accuse him of being naive, but I caught myself. The fact is: Yes, France is dangerous, compared to most other Western countries. I just don’t live in a constant state of alert.

politico.eu

The organization still lives in Syria and Yemen, and its East African branch, Al-Shabab, is still in Somalia

newsy.com

Libyan militias backed by American airstrikes said they have cleared the stronghold of the Islamic State in Libya, a defeat that would set back the group’s ambitions in North Africa. The country, however, remains very unstable amid battles between rival militias and the remaining militants could still undermine a fragile U.S.-backed unity government, analysts said.

Libyan fighters erupted in celebration in the coastal city of Sirte on Tuesday after a nearly seven month struggle to oust the Islamic State, as the mostly pro-government forces were searching for any remaining militants.

The Islamic State’s hopes of extending their self-proclaimed “caliphate” beyond Syria and Iraq into Libya have been dashed, at least for now. But while their propaganda war and recruiting efforts have also been weakened, analysts said, the group remains active in other parts of the country.

Libya now faces the specter of clandestine cells staging terrorist attacks, much like they’ve done recently in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, after battlefield reverses there.

“The retaking of Sirte is certainly a negative blow to Islamic State affiliates in Libya because they will no longer have a territorial stronghold in the country,” said Claudia Gazzini, senior Libya analyst for the International Crisis Group. “This is significant because it no longer gives them the possibility to operate in the open or to recruit and levy taxes directly.”

Yet despite its demise, Gazzini said, “we cannot rule out” that the group will carry out attacks in other parts of the country.

Libya descended into turmoil following the death of dictator Moammar Gaddafi in 2011 in the aftermath of the country’s Arab Spring uprising. The oil-producing nation fractured into fiefdoms controlled by competing groups of former rebels. Rival governments were established in the capital, Tripoli, and in the east, with each claiming authority.

In the vacuum, the Islamic State and other extremist groups emerged in Libya. In early 2015, in alliance with other radical factions, the Islamic State’s affiliate seized parts of Sirte, situated in the heart of Libya’s oil crescent. Within months, the militants had tightened their grip on the city and sought to create their own government.

The militants viewed Sirte as a possible fallback capital if their headquarters in the Syrian city of Raqqa fell. Recruits from other parts of Africa and the Middle East as well within Libya streamed to Sirte, which was where Gaddafi was born.

“Operationally, it was an important base and logistics hub for other ISIS fronts in Libya,” said Frederic Wehrey, a Middle East analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The fall of Sirte arrives at a tense moment for Libya. Rival militias have been battling for territory and economic gain in recent days in the worst eruption of fighting in the capital in more than a year. Clashes are also underway in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city, pitting Islamists against forces loyal to Gen. Khalifa Hifter, a powerful commander who recently seized control of key oil terminals, while his rivals were concentrated on besieging Sirte.

The violence has further challenged the authority of the unity government, which has struggled to exert control since it arrived in Tripoli in March. Those challenges are poised to become even more complicated as the Islamic State plots its next moves — and a possible revival.

“For it to find a place to govern and rule it would need to find a locale suffering from marginalization and some sort of tribal or social constituency that would welcome it — as well as a pre-existing jihadist infrastructure,” Wehrey said.

Today, some ISIS militants are fighting in Benghazi. Analysts say that others who fled Sirte may have relocated to southern Libya, including the city of Sebha. The south offers a safe haven to regroup, but its remoteness makes it more difficult for it to attract recruits and stage attacks.

There have also been reports of Islamic State activity in western Libya, including in the town of Bani Walid, where sympathetic tribes have provided the militants with safe houses, and in the coastal town of Sabratha, where ISIS has strong links to smuggling and other criminal networks.

“It’s hard to predict whether they still have a leadership capable of thinking up next steps,” said Mattia Toaldo, a Libya analyst and senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “The real question is whether the single jihadists will find a new ‘home’ in other jihadist groups.”

Tripoli could become the militants’ next target. Violence in the capital would further undermine the government’s authority and dissuade foreigners from returning. Tensions are also growing between Islamist militias in city, and any eruption of fighting could aid Islamic State cells.

“Any outright conflict between these groups would certainly throw in disarray what little security there is in Tripoli, and this could open space for radical groups like IS,” said Gazzini, referring to the Islamic State.

Even as the unity government seeks to capitalize on the liberation of Sirte and bolster its international legitimacy, many of its supporters are increasingly dissatisfied. The militias that ousted the Islamic State are mostly from the city of Misuruta. Many Misuratans believe the recent clashes in Tripoli are an attempt by their rivals to claim the capital.

“The Misuratans are not happy with this and might try to mobilize forces to Tripoli in the upcoming weeks,” Gazzini said.

Or they could end up fighting Hifter’s forces, Toaldo said.

The more the instability, the greater the possibility that the Islamic State will regroup and that other extremist groups will form in Libya.

“The important thing to underscore is that jihadism and the radical threat in Libya is still very much present, especially given the institutional breakdown of the state, the alienation of vast swathes of youths, marginalized towns and tribes,” Wehrey said.

washingtonpost.com

The recent attack in Columbus, Ohio, by a Somali Muslim whose family migrated to Pakistan and then to America once again demonstrates that we are not adequately vetting immigrants. This is not an insignificant issue.

As we have noted before, two-thirds of those convicted on terrorism-related charges since 9/11 were foreign born. In other words, tighter border controls could dramatically reduce the danger our homeland faces from radical Islamic supremacists.

Donald Trump is right to demand “extreme vetting” of new immigrants and refugees coming from areas infested with Islamic extremism. However, there is no vetting adequate enough to sort out which Muslim immigrants may at some future point have their hearts stirred by the call to jihad.

Regardless of what our politically correct cultural and political elites tell us, jihad for the sake of Allah — waging war for the sake of Allah — is a consistent pattern of Islam’s history. Why would this surprise anyone? The founder of the faith was a warrior.

While Christianity is not pacifistic, and the concept of just war is well-accepted within Christian theology, Christ never advocated taking up the sword to spread his message. For Mohammad, holy war and the subjugation of defeated enemies into slavery or dhimmitude was an accepted practice.

To deny this is wrong, and people are dying as a result.

But radical Islamists are well aware that they have other weapons at their disposal than bombs, bullets, cars and butcher knives. One way to defeat the militarily superior West is to use our immigration policies against us.

In a new book, CIA contractor James Mitchell details the interrogations he conducted with 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) and other Al Qaeda operatives. While Mohammed was proud of the 9/11 attacks, he understood that it was “not practical” to defeat America militarily. But he had a plan. Consider this excerpt from Mitchell’s book:

“He said the terror attacks were good, but the ‘practical’ way to defeat America was through immigration and by outbreeding non-Muslims. He said jihadi-minded brothers would immigrate into the United States, taking advantage of the welfare system to support themselves while they spread their jihadi message. They will wrap themselves in America’s rights and laws for protection, ratchet up acceptance of Sharia law, and then, only when they were strong enough, rise up and violently impose Sharia from within. . . ‘Eventually,’ KSM said, ‘America will expose her neck to us for slaughter.’”

Those familiar with the Holy Land Foundation trial will recognize that Khalid Sheik Mohammed was not necessarily articulating a new thought. Look at the problems mass migration have caused in Europe — from the New Year’s rapes to terrorism.

Recently, an Arabic translator working in German refugee camps decided to expose the “pure hatred” she experienced from Muslims toward Christians. Once again, I have to ask what public policy purpose is being served by importing such hatred into our own country?

dailycaller.com/

In coming months, the Islamic State will lose its strongholds of Mosul and Raqqa in Iraq and Syria. Yet evicting the group from these cities alone will not be sufficient in stopping future attacks or deterring its military capabilities since the self-proclaimed caliphate will still govern a wide swathe of key Syrian territory. The international coalition must prioritise retaking this land if it hopes to defeat the Islamic State once and for all.

After Raqqa’s fall, the Islamic State will retreat to Syria’s vast and overlooked Deir Ezzor province where it is already well entrenched. This arid stretch of eastern Syria straddling the Euphrates river valley has so far failed to get the attention from policymakers it deserves.

The “time of wilderness” experienced by the Islamic State’s predecessor group offers an instructive lesson. In 2007, the US boosted its troop numbers Iraq as part of its surge strategy. It buffeted these forces by enticing Sunni tribal leaders in the western Anbar province, many of whom were disgusted by the then Islamic State of Iraq’s savage tactics, to buy in. While this booted the militants from their Anbar strongholds and diminished their numbers, surviving fighters subsisted for years in hard-to-reach corners of Iraq, eventually re-emerging as an even more powerful foe.

Deir Ezzor and its village belts and mid-sized towns is more than a wilderness – it is an enormous hinterland. Here, Islamic State can reorganise, refit and reassert itself following losses in northern Syria and Iraq. Just as the group slowly mushroomed from a handful of worn-out guerillas into a more conventional fighting force between 2008 and 2011, so too it may use Deir Ezzor and its obscure villages as shelter.

It has already fashioned Deir Ezzor into a fortress. Only a sliver of Deir Ezzor city, the provincial capital, and its adjacent air and military bases remain under Syrian regime control. Many of the city’s inhabitants cut off from the outside world by strict siege. The Islamic State wields total control in its countryside, and in towns like al-Mayadeen, al-Bukamal and the Iraqi border town of al-Qaim those who have dared challenge its authority have met gruesome fates. To secure its position the Islamic State has either roped the local tribes of the Euphrates river valley into its fold or cowed them into submission through brute force.

Syrian activists have also reported that the Islamic State is preparing to transfer some of its senior leadership to the province. The killing of top-tier commander Abu Sayyaf at the hands of American special forces soldiers in a major Deir Ezzor oil installation in May 2015 suggests that the presence of leadership in the region is nothing new.

From Deir Ezzor the Islamic State can continue to mount conventional military operations. This could mean trying to seize the regime airbase, and push into the soft underbelly of the Syrian regime in eastern Homs, or spearheading toward Palmyra and its nearby oil fields. The Deir Ezzor pocket will continue to afford the Islamic State a springboard for guerilla or conventional attacks. To prevent the Islamic State from surviving as a rural insurgency, the international coalition must hunt the terror group into the depths of this desert flank.

The Syrian regime lacks the manpower and the operational capability to retake Deir Ezzor, even with the backing of Russian airpower. Likewise, Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi has poured cold water on the notion that Iraq’s popular militias enter the Syrian theatre. Should they defy him and try, an advance by the mostly Shia militias could upend eastern Syria’s ornate social fabric and add fuel to the sectarian fire.

The international coalition’s current battle plan for Raqqa, focusing on using mostly Kurdish militias to retake majority-Arab territory, inspires little confidence. This ethnic mixture could sow seeds for future conflict. Instead of replicating this, the coalition should entice Euphrates river valley tribes and other Sunni Arab opposition forces to push on Deir Ezzor. In other words, they should mimic the 2007 Anbar recipe for success.

If successful, an opposition-held eastern Syria could also pressure the Russians – and by extension the Syrian regime – into a tighter bargaining position. The regime would be forced to accept opposition control over the Iraqi border and the core of the country’s oil and gas infrastructure. This could open the door for a more earnest attempt at a negotiated multilateral settlement. It would remove the Islamic State as a variable in east Syria, give the opposition much-needed safe haven, and force the regime and its backers to accept the limits of their force projection.

The fight against the Islamic State will continue long after Raqqa and Mosul’s liberation. The US should not yield in its determination to pursue the terror group to the farthest stretches of Syria. If it fails do so, the Islamic State may just re-emerge once again, revitalized and born anew as it has before.

Ignoring Deir Ezzor means ignoring a key piece of the Syrian tapestry. It is only by recapturing Islamic State-held territory in its totality, including these desert flanks and fringes, that the US and allies can hope to put the final nails in its coffin. Until then, Deir Ezzor will remain the missing piece in the puzzle of destroying the Islamic State.

newstatesman.com

It goes without saying that Donald Trump will make the fight against religious extremism his top priority in the next four years. But if he wants to stay ahead of groups like Islamic State, he needs to move quickly on taking his security policies beyond the Middle East.

Specifically, Trump needs to come up with something new in Washington’s approach to Afghanistan and Central Asia. Just look at the map: This core region between Russia, China and Iran is at the crossroads of security challenges, including terrorism and radicalism.

Kazakhstan, in particular, is at the intersection of political and economic interests not only for Washington but also Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran. As Trump articulates a new vision for the United States, the issue is simple: Kazakhstan’s crucial geo-strategic position requires American attention.

The Obama administration created a vacuum in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya, piling up security challenges for the region and for the United States. The sum total of these conflicts across a wide arc from North Africa to the Levant to Central Asia has created a security nightmare that will demand thoughtfulness and foresight. The Trump administration needs to begin addressing the Islamist challenge by engaging Kazakhstan directly.

This is because Afghanistan remains a bleeding wound, as the Taliban and especially Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (IS) are likely to affect mostly secular/moderate, Islamic-majority autocracies of Central Asia negatively by launching recruitment operations and ultimately extremist attacks in these countries. Reports from Kazakhstan suggest this process is already starting.

In addition, the outflow of Central Asian fighters who went to wage jihad in Syria are backwashing to Central Asia, potentially capable of undermining not just Kazakhstan and Central Asia at large, but also Russia and Europe.

The Trump administration will be well advised to focus on new bilateral security programs with Kazakhstan. A former Soviet republic, the Muslim-majority country has long recognized the importance of managing its Islamic values while simultaneously developing its energy infrastructure and vast mineral resources.

First, the United States should restructure the C5+1 format. The C5+1, only a year old, is a platform that brings together the five states of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) and the United States. The C5+1 has met twice.

The C5+1 needs to be given more priority and necessary leadership. C5+1’s ambitious program needs a retrofit. But there is a larger point: President Barack Obama failed to visit Central Asia during his eight years in office. President-elect Trump should rectify this strategic neglect: any trip to China or Russia should also include a stop in Central Asia.

Second, Kazakhstan should become one of the key U.S. security partners in the region by revisiting CENTRASBAT, or the Central Asian Battalion.

In 1996, the United States helped to established CENTRASBAT, which was supposed to strengthen the military-to-military relationships and regional security through joint peacekeeping.

Unfortunately, CENTRASBAT suffered from neglect as a flagging of American engagement moved Afghanistan to the back burner. A new plan that gives CENTRASBAT a sharp, cutting-edge counter-terrorism mission is necessary. The requirements for combating terrorist activity and ideology will require thinking out of the box, including countering radical ideology and propaganda. A new bilateral security relationship is needed between Washington and Astana.

The United States should also expand diplomatic cooperation with Kazakhstan, which plays an important founding role in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). However, most valuable to Washington is Astana’s ability to work with all great powers and international organizations, including the U.N., where Kazakhstan is to become a non-permanent Security Council member as of January 2017.
On the international stage, Kazakhstan, under President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s tutelage, has also chaired the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in 2010 as well as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in 2011.

Let’s not forget that Nazarbayev promoted his own vision of security with the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), which is a possible mechanism for bringing together countries.

On the economic front, international attention will be focused on the China-led historic One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative. It is the reinvention of the historic Silk Road, the future massive infrastructure projects, where new ports, pipelines and highways are creating new supply chain routes across Central Asia, tying China and Europe.

Overall, the United States is going to improve its own and its allies’ security through partnership and cooperation, not by withdrawing behind the two oceans. And it is through positive engagement in the fight against terrorism that Washington can and should engage Moscow in a positive way.

The Trump administration needs to recognize Kazakhstan as the nexus of Eurasia, the crossroads where both strategic and transactional relationships can be built in America’s interests.

bdnews24.com

Radical Islam is not a monolith. The Lebanese Hizballah fights the Islamic State in Syria, Hamas has crushed al-Qaeda sympathizers in Gaza, and—most importantly from a U.S. perspective—al-Qaeda and the Islamic State are bitter rivals. This tension shows up in Afghanistan, one of the most important U.S. theaters of war.

Since 2014, the Islamic State has established a small presence in Afghanistan. Islamic State leaders call this province, or wilayat, “Khorasan,” a reference to the historical region that encompassed parts of Iran, Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Yet despite their effort to expand power and influence in the region, the Islamic State-Khorasan Province, as Islamic State leaders refer to the affiliate, controls virtually no territory except for tiny areas in such districts as Deh Bala, Achin, and Naziyan in the eastern province of Nangarhar. The Islamic State has conducted only a handful of attacks in the region, failed to secure the support of most locals, and struggled with poor leadership.

The Afghan Taliban has emerged as one of the Islamic State’s fiercest enemies, though the U.S. and Afghan governments have conducted strikes as well. Taliban commanders have orchestrated an aggressive campaign against the Islamic State to kill its senior leaders, co-opt its members, and undermine its ideology. This development is a double-edged sword for the United States, with broader implications in the campaign to unseat the Islamic State from territorial control in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The weakening of the Islamic State is a positive step. But Taliban successes against Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s organization have increased the Taliban’s strength in eastern and southern Afghanistan, creating a separate challenge for the United States and its allies.

The Rise of the Islamic State in Khorasan

In 2014, Islamic State leaders communicated with militant groups in South Asia to gauge the possibility of expanding the Islamic State’s influence in the region. The Islamic State began conducting an information campaign through word of mouth, printed material, and other forums. Islamic State sympathizers, for example, distributed a 12-page printed booklet titled “Fateh” (or “victory” in Pashto) in Pashtun areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. As Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Shahid Shahidullah remarked in late 2014: “Oh our brothers, we are proud of you in your victories. We are with you in your happiness and your sorrow … All Muslims in the world have great expectations of you. We are with you, we will provide you with mujahedeen and with every possible support.”

South Asia seemed a promising market for the Islamic State. The region has a long history of supporting jihadist groups, dating back to the anti-Soviet wars in the 1980s. South Asia also had several factors that made it attractive for Islamic State leaders: relatively weak governments, which provided an opportunity to secure safe havens in areas with little or no official interference; ongoing wars backed by Western countries like the United States, which could be used to delegitimize the governments in Kabul and Islamabad as foreign puppets; and a religious and historical importance as part of Khorasan. The Islamic State launched a blistering public attack against al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban, accusing them of having gross shortcomings regarding the teaching of tawhid (the oneness of God) to their members. The Islamic State accused both the Taliban and al-Qaeda of multiple offenses: focusing on tribal law over Sharia, establishing a close alliance with Pakistan’s intelligence agency, failing to effectively conquer and control territory, neglecting to target Shi’a, adopting “un-Islamic” practices such as wearing amulets, establishing a hierarchical structure that excluded many rank-and-file fighters, and recognizing international borders (instead of supporting a pan-Islamic caliphate).

One of the few groups that escaped the Islamic State’s excoriation was the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, which was formed in December 2007 as an umbrella organization among various Pakistani militant groups. “They were upon great good,” concluded one article in Dabiq, the Islamic State’s online magazine, referring to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. “They carry the Salafi creed and hope and strive to establish the laws of Islam in their region.”

The Islamic State’s Strategy

In January 2015, the Islamic State formally announced the establishment of what it called “Wilayat Khorasan,” or Khorasan Province, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Over the next several months, the Islamic State focused on co-opting local militants and expanding its networks in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Its strategy included several components.

First, the Islamic State attempted to exploit local grievances in leveraging already-established networks. Following the death of several Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan leaders, Hafiz Saeed Khan and several of his colleagues in Pakistan became increasingly disenchanted with the group. Saeed had apparently been one of the main contenders for the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s top spot, but was passed over. In southern Afghanistan, Abdul Rauf Khadim was a longstanding Taliban military leader who rose to prominence after the United States released him from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2007. Yet he became increasingly disgruntled with the Afghan Taliban. The Islamic State recruited some of these frustrated former Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and Afghan Taliban members, as well as operatives from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

Second, the Islamic State headquarters in Syria and Iraq doled out some money to attract supporters. The Islamic State was willing to provide some finances—perhaps as much as several hundred thousand dollars—to build networks in South Asia. The Islamic State’s seizure of territory in Iraq and Syria attracted some extremists in the region, who wanted to ally with what they viewed as a successful violent jihadist group.

Third, the Islamic State took advantage of weak local governance to establish a foothold. Nangarhar Province in Afghanistan is perhaps the clearest example. Both the Afghan government and Taliban had failed to control territory in parts of Nangarhar. The Afghan government and its security forces had virtually no presence in most parts of districts along the Spin Ghar mountain range south and east of Jalalabad. And the Taliban had little control in an area that included multiple insurgent groups and fractured tribal dynamics. In such districts as Achin, Deh Bala, and Naziyan, the Shinwari tribal structure has almost completely broken down.

Based on this strategy, the Islamic State established an organizational structure led by an emir, with a deputy emir and a central shura composed of such committees as intelligence, finance, propaganda, and education. After the death of Hafiz Saeed Khan in 2016 by a U.S. drone strike, the Islamic State appointed Abdul Hasib, a former Afghan Taliban member, as emir of the organization.

The Decline of the Islamic State

Despite its best efforts, however, the Islamic State controls little territory in South Asia, conducted only a handful of attacks, failed to secure the support of most locals, and struggled with poor leadership.

One of the Islamic State’s fiercest opponents has been the Taliban. In 2015, the now-deceased Taliban leader Akhtar Mohammad Mansour bluntly warned in a message to Islamic State fighters that the war in Afghanistan should come “under one banner” and one leadership—that of the Taliban. Taliban leaders strongly objected to the Islamic State’s desire to establish a separate chain of command in Afghanistan with a separate leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. In response to Mansour’s letter, Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani (now deceased) responded by accusing the Taliban of allying with Pakistani intelligence. This war of words soon gave way to bloody skirmishes.

In eastern Afghanistan, fighting erupted between the Taliban and Islamic State in early 2015. The first clashes took place in Naziyan district of Nangarhar Province, and were followed by Taliban attacks against Islamic State positions in Kot and the Mamand Valley. In May 2015, the Afghan Taliban withdrew after failing to secure support among locals, and Islamic State forces conducted offensive operations against the Taliban in several districts of Nangarhar. By mid-summer of 2015, the Islamic State controlled territory in several districts in the province. But the Taliban regrouped. Drawing on fighters in nearby provinces, the Taliban successfully pushed Islamic State fighters out of most districts in Nangarhar, except for Deh Bala, Achin, and Naziyan. In southern Afghanistan, the Taliban routed Islamic State fighters. In the northern Helmand district of Kajaki, for example, Taliban fighters captured or killed several dozen fighters that had allied with the Islamic State in 2015. The Taliban did the same in Farah Province, where they killed, captured, or co-opted an Islamic State cell in the Khak-e-Safid district. The Taliban also brutally crushed Islamic State cells in Logar and Zabul provinces.

Broader Lessons

Today, the Islamic State has roughly 1,000 to 2,000 fighters in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a decrease from 2015 estimates. The group has conducted only a handful of attacks in the region, such as against a police convoy in Quetta in August 2016, Pakistan attorneys at a hospital in Quetta in August 2016, Hazara protesters in Kabul in July 2016, and the Pakistan consulate in Jalalabad in January 2016. But the Islamic State’s loss of territory in such provinces as Helmand, Farah, Zabul, and Logar is not entirely a good news story. The Afghan Taliban has benefited from the Islamic State’s decline. The Taliban has strengthened its power, bolstered its reputation, and complicated U.S. and Afghan government efforts to wind down the Afghan war.

The Afghan experience highlights a broader lesson in the fight against the Islamic State. The Islamic State’s loss of territory will not occur in a vacuum. Who will benefit? Other terrorist groups or non-state actors? The local government? Regional powers? As the United States and its allies undermine Islamic State territorial control in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and other countries, policymakers need to shift their attention to understanding and influencing who fills the vacuum. As in Afghanistan, the United States may not be much better off with the winners.

lawfareblog.com