A new type of threat has reportedly emerged in Afghanistan. Under the façade of negotiating peace, the Taliban’s military hardliners have allegedly set in motion tactical alliances with other non-Taliban groups as part of their double game to continue fighting and disrupting peace efforts. One such emerging relationship relates to recent reports about the growing ties between the Haqqani Network and ISIS-Khorasan, the terror group’s Afghan branch, like reported by thehill.com.

The Haqqani hardliners are the Taliban’s lethal arm, who have long believed they have no military reason to stop fighting or sue for peace. A recent United Nations report emphasized the network’s evolving partnership with ISIS-K, noting that most ISIS-K-claimed attacks had some degree of “involvement, facilitation, or the provision of technical assistance by the Haqqani Network.”

Operationally, the Haqqanis seek to establish a lethal triangle with ISIS-K and a third group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, or LeT—the Pakistani jihadists that lend active training and logistical support to this emerging front. To a large extent, the partnership in the triangle seems more transactional than ideological, where each side brings its comparative advantage in supporting attacks and logistics. Yet there appears to be a clear division of labor and responsibility among the three factions.

At present, the Haqqanis constitute about 20 percent of the Taliban’s total fighting force. While there is little precise information about ISIS-K’s actual fighting strength, up to 2,200 fighters are believed to operate under the group’s banner across Afghanistan. This includes at least 10 percent foreign fighters with combat experiences in Syria and Iraq. There is, however, a great deal of ambiguity about who ISIS-K really is and whether it presents an indigenous threat or is an externally-enabled special project designed for a particular purpose. After all, ISIS-K was born only after disgruntled Taliban members rebranded themselves under a new flag. Today, the group maintains limited communication with their parent organization in Syria/Iraq and exercises autonomy in operations and decision-making. Meanwhile, there are about 800 active Lashkar-e-Taiba fighters, mostly in eastern Afghanistan.

While all groups in the triangle maintain sleeper cells in Kabul, Nangarhar and Kunar provinces, ISIS-K’s operational capabilities to stage complex attacks on its own are negligible. In that regard, the Haqqanis have a competitive advantage and maintain a stronger operational presence in major cities, including Kabul, Paktia, Paktika, Khost, Logar, Wardak and Ghazni provinces. The LeT, on its part, plays a significant role in smuggling weapons and foreign fighters into Afghanistan, explosive training and targeted assassinations.

Meanwhile, there appears to be a greater degree of coordination in the triangle in terms of claiming responsibility for attacks. Although the Haqqanis are skilled at staging complex raids, they hardly claim any attacks under their name. Instead, the Taliban take responsibility for nearly every attack that results in military casualties, while ISIS-K often claims ones that kill civilians. The UN report found that intercepts showed ISIS-K claimed attacks were “traceable to known members of the Haqqani Network.”

It almost seems that in this transactional partnership, the Taliban hardliners have found a willing scapegoat in ISIS-K and have outsourced their dirty work of targeting civilians. In fact, there have been instances of simultaneous attacks on the same day in a city, where ISIS-K has claimed the attack on civilian targets while the Taliban claims the one on Afghan forces and institutions.

Without a doubt, this evolving alliance of convenience is a troubling development. It runs contrary to the promises made in the U.S.-Taliban agreement, to which the Haqqanis are a de facto party. Worryingly, the Haqqanis codependent relationship with al Qaeda is another concern. The relationship seems as strong as it was in the 1990s when the Haqqanis first allowed al Qaeda to establish camps in Haqqani territory. For example, the UN report declared that senior Haqqani leaders have discussed forming “a new joint unit of 2,000 armed fighters in cooperation with and funded by al-Qaeda.” In February 2020, Haqqani leaders also reportedly met with al Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

More broadly, al Qaeda in Afghanistan has stayed disproportionately healthy and has not lost sight of its objectives. On the contrary, it has managed to regenerate its network, bolster its operational capabilities, cement its alliances and expand its presence beyond Afghanistan through its local franchise, al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS).

Despite the U.S.-Taliban agreement, al Qaeda continues to draw its strength from its multilayered partnership with the Taliban. The terror group has effectively transformed itself by adopting a surrogate role under the Taliban’s shelter and has entrenched al Qaeda deeply into the Taliban ranks. This transformation has served al Qaeda well, enabling the group to patiently increase its activities and capabilities, especially with the Taliban under the public spotlight.

To a large extent, that investment has paid off. Today, al Qaeda operates camps in 12 provinces and boasts 600 fighters. The group’s innovative abilities to attract new recruits has been equally impressive. It can easily inspire recruits from over 10,000 foreign terrorist fighters in Afghanistan, including up to 6,500 from Pakistan. Meanwhile, Taliban ranks are awash with various pro- and anti- al Qaeda factions, which often make it difficult to distinguish Taliban fighters from al Qaeda ones in Taliban units. Politically, too, al Qaeda has stayed in sync with the Taliban. During the U.S.-Taliban talks, al Qaeda leaders Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden’s son, Hamza bin Laden, received regular assurances from their Taliban partners that their “historical ties” will be honored.

However, while al Qaeda has been unaffected by the growth of ISIS-Khorasan, it has suffered important setbacks in recent months. In September 2019, AQIS chief Asim Umar was killed alongside a courier who transported messages to Ayman al-Zawahiri in a compound in southern Afghanistan. Also in September, the U.S. announced the killing of Hamza bin Laden in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region. Yet other prominent al Qaeda leaders with long ties to Afghanistan remain at large in Afghanistan and the region, including Abu Muhammad al-Masri and Saif al-Adel, who are believed to be in Iran.

To be sure, these tactical alliances do not portend well for the U.S.-Taliban agreement, which envisions the Taliban and their hardliners as potential counterterrorism partners. Neither do these growing threats augur well for a post-American Afghanistan, as emphasized by repeated U.S. security assessments. More pressingly, the Taliban hardliners’ double game on the heels of potential intra-Afghan talks underscores the existing political-military frictions within the group. It highlights how the Taliban views a public break with al Qaeda as a risky proposition, one that could trigger a dangerous internal revolt within its military ranks. This double game is also indicative of the lack of intra-Taliban consensus about truly negotiating peace and runs a greater risk of disrupting the upcoming peace negotiations.

For now, it is hard to imagine a way forward for Afghanistan. The running challenge is that the United States remains undecided about what it wants to do with Afghanistan. But whatever the U.S. decides in the coming months, the threat posed by overlapping alliances of the Taliban-allied jihadist groups should not be ignored.

The Afghan government plans to release 900 more Taliban prisoners on May 26, as a cease-fire by the militants enters its third and final day, like reported by rferl.org.

The break in fighting, which came into effect on May 24 to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, was for the most part holding out across the country, officials said.

The government earlier responded to the Taliban’s cease-fire offer by announcing plans to release up to 2,000 militant prisoners.

“There is a decision to release 900 today,” National Security Council spokesman Javid Faisal said on May 26, adding that the precise number could vary subject to legal procedures.

If completed, it would be the biggest group of Taliban prisoners freed so far.

On May 25, authorities freed 100 prisoners.

The 100 Taliban prisoners were released from Bagram, north of Kabul, on May 25 as “a gesture of goodwill to advance peace efforts, including an extended cease-fire and the immediate start of direct talks” with the militants, Faisal tweeted.

Faisal posted photos of the freed militants inside a bus.

In February, the United States and the Taliban signed an agreement aimed at ending the longest military action in U.S. history. The deal lays out a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in return for security commitments from the Taliban.

It also stipulates that Kabul must free 5,000 Taliban prisoners, while the militants are to release 1,000 captives — a move expected to lead to intra-Afghan negotiations.

President Ashraf Ghani said the government was also ready to hold peace talks with the Taliban, seen as key to ending a nearly two-decade-long war.

The latest release of Taliban prisoners brings to 1,100 the number of militants freed since early April, an official at the National Security Council told RFE/RL, while the militant group has freed 245 security personnel, civil servants, and other people it had been holding.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has welcomed the cease-fire but warned that the freed Taliban fighters should not return to the battlefield.

Afghanistan’s Human Rights Commission also cautioned the government against releasing Taliban militants who committed war crimes.

The U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalizad, described the cease-fire as “a momentous opportunity” to accelerate a stalled U.S.-Taliban peace process.

“Other positive steps should immediately follow: the release of remaining prisoners as specified in the U.S.-Taliban agreement by both sides, no returning to high levels of violence, and an agreement on a new date for the start of intra-Afghan negotiations,” Khalizad wrote on Twitter.

The prospect of direct talks between Kabul and the Taliban gained a boost on May 17 when Ghani and his political rival, Abdullah Abdullah, reached a power-sharing agreement nearly eight months after disputed elections that led to a parallel government and hampered efforts to broker a peace deal.

The United States has about 12,000 troops in Afghanistan. Washington pays about $4 billion a year to maintain the Afghan military.

Taliban militants control about half of Afghanistan’s territory and have continued to carry out attacks since the deal was signed.

Afghan intelligence service spokesman Javid Faisal said on May 23 that at least 146 civilians were killed and 430 wounded in Taliban attacks during Ramadan.

Taliban opened fire at two mosques in Afghanistan late on May 19, killing at least 13 worshippers who were breaking their Ramadan fast, officials said according to rferl.org.

In one of the attacks, in the central province of Parwan, at least 10 people were killed and 16 wounded, security officials told RFE/RL.

General Alozai Ahmadi, the commander of Afghan security forces in Parwan, said an investigation is under way into the attack in Parwan’s provincial capital Charekar.

“Unknown gunmen fired on people praying inside a mosque during iftar time,” said Wahida Shahkar, spokeswoman for the governor of Parwan, referring to the meal eaten to break daytime fasting during the Islamic holy month.

The Interior Ministry blamed the attack on the insurgent Taliban. The Taliban denied responsibility and said Afghan security forces were to blame.

The Parwan province police chief, Haroon Mubariz Parwan, told RFE/RL that Islamic State militants are suspected of having carried out the attack.

Three other people were killed in a similar attack late on May 19 on a mosque in the southeastern Khost Province, Talib Mangal, a spokesman for the provincial governor, told RFE/RL.

Mangal said a child was also wounded in the attack in the Sabari district of Khost.

No one claimed responsibility for the Khost attack.

The security situation has been deteriorating in Khost in recent weeks. The police chief of Khost, Sayed Ahmad Babazai, was killed by a roadside bomb on May 8.

The United Nations has warned of an alarming spike in violence against civilians in Afghanistan. An attack on a Kabul maternity ward last week killed 24 people, including newborn babies.

Violence has increased after a February 29 agreement between the United States and the Taliban on the withdrawal of U.S.-led foreign forces in exchange for Taliban security guarantees.

Afghan security forces on May 19 clashed with Taliban fighters around the city of Kunduz, a strategically important center that the militants have briefly captured twice in recent years.

Security forces largely repelled the Taliban offensive with the help of air support.

Assadullah Khalid, acting defense minister, said during a visit to the city that more than 50 militants and eight security force members had been killed.

The Taliban has rejected repeated calls for a cease-fire by the Afghan government. They deny any involvement in the maternity ward attack, for which Washington believes Islamic State militants were responsible.

The United States has sent special peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad to Qatar and Kabul to press the Taliban and the Afghan government to start stalled peace talks.

An airstrike destroyed a Humvee Armored Personnel Carrier (APC) which the Taliban militants wanted to use in a deadly Vehicle-borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) attack in Maimana city, like reported by khaama.com.

The Ministry of Defense (MoD) in a statement said the security forces identified a Humvee APC packed with explosives and destroyed it in an airstrike before Taliban militants could detonate it in Maimana city of Faryab.

The statement further added that the security traced the Humvee APC in Makhshi Khesht Village of Pashtun Kot district and subsequently destroyed it by conducting an airstrike.

The security forces prevented a deadly attack and saved dozens of lives by destroying the Armored Personnel Carrier.

The Taliban group has not commented in this regard so far.

This comes as Taliban militants detonated a Vehicle-borne Improvised Explosive Device in Gardez city, the provincial capital of Paktiya province on Thursday which killed 5 civilians and wounded at least 24 others, according to security officials.

The latest reports suggests that 45 Afghan migrants lost their lives after a group of 57 peope were thrown into river by the Iranian border guards, like reported by khaama.com.

Habiburrahman Pidram, a lawmaker from the westerly Herat province, told Reuters “These workers were kept in custody by Iranian forces and, after 24 hours, the Afghan workers were brought to the bank of the river, beaten and ordered to jump in the river to go back to Afghanistan.”

Pidram further added “Of 57 workers who were forced into the river by Iranian security forces, only 12 managed to survive.”

Some of the Afghan migrants had earlier accused the Iranian forces, border guards, of throwing 57 people into a river which resulted in the killing of at least 23 of them.

Certain of the survivors of the incident claimed that the Iranian border guards initially arrested the migrants from a bordering region and later threw them in to Harirod River.

According to reports, the incident took place earlier this as the migrants were on their way to Iran, apparently for work opportunities.

Afghanistan’s intelligence agency said it had broken up a joint cell of ISIS and Haqqani Network militants who carried out the deadly raid on a Sikh temple in Kabul and other recent attacks, like reported by thenational.ae/.

Five militants were killed and eight others arrested when security forces stormed two hideouts of the cell, one in Kabul and the other outside the capital, the National Directorate of Security said in a statement.

“This joint cell of Daesh and Haqqani Network had carried out major attacks in the capital, including an attack on a Sikh temple in March,” the NDS said.

At least 25 people were killed when gunmen stormed the temple in Kabul on March 25 as worshippers were offering morning prayers.

The attack was claimed by the Islamic State in the Khorasan (IS-K), the Afghan branch of ISIS.

The ISIS-Haqqani cell was also behind a rocket attack in Kabul during the swearing-in ceremony of President Ashraf Ghani, the intelligence agency said.

Members of the cell had also killed several Afghan officials and fired rockets at Bagram, the US military’s largest base in Afghanistan, the NDS said.

Afghan officials have long accused the Haqqani Network, a US-designated terror group with ties to the Taliban, of carrying out major attacks claimed by or blamed on IS-K.

“There is undeniable evidence showing a strong link and co-operation between the Haqqani Network and ISIS,” a senior security official said.

“They jointly plan and carry out terrorist attacks, especially in Kabul.”

Late last year, Afghan officials said IS-K had been completely defeated in Nangarhar, a key eastern province where it had first sought to establish a stronghold in 2015.

A senior security analyst said Afghanistan’s intelligence agents have long believed that the Haqqanis were either aiding IS-K in carrying out attacks or actually carrying out attacks in their name.

“If they are now caught side by side in the same trench as the NDS says … this could be an alarming development,” said Atiqullah Amarkhail, a former Afghan army general turned security analyst.

“It may indicate that even if the Taliban one day agrees to reduce or end violence, the actual violence perpetrated by more radical groups like Daesh and Haqqanis may continue.”

The Taliban dismissed as “propaganda” the NDS statement that the Taliban-affiliated Haqqanis were working with IS-K.

“We strongly reject this propaganda. We have nothing in common with Daesh,” Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the group, said in a text message to reporters.

The United States and the Taliban signed a landmark deal in late February that lays the groundwork to end Afghanistan’s war.

American and other foreign forces pledged to quit Afghanistan within 14 months of the February 29 deal signing, provided the Taliban stick to several security guarantees and hold talks with the government.

A key tenet of the US-Taliban accord is that the Taliban will not allow groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS to use Afghan soil to plan attacks against the US and its allies.

Global extremist militant organization Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has appealed to Indian muslims and scholars to unite their efforts and pursue jihad against India to safeguard against what it dubbed as prejudice and genocide, like reported by catchnews.com.

Indian security agencies say the statement by Al-Qaeda’s Middle East faction reveals an abnormal synergy between the global jihadist outfit and Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) in setting up a narrative that blames New Delhi of discrimination against minorities.

The statement by the militant organization focus attention on the Citizenship Amendment Act that accelerates the process of granting Indian citizenship to undocumented migrants from six minority religious communities in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The law was passed in December last year.

A senior official in the security agency stated that the allusion to the citizenship act was only the gateway for the global terror group to give support to the Pakistan deep state’s shrill social media operation to negatively affect India’s relations with the Gulf nations and infuriate Indian muslims.

“We have been tracking the social media campaign right from the start and have identified the 2,794 Twitter handles that have played the most active role to carry out this information warfare. We have been able to trace every hashtag that has been created to target India or the government over the rights of muslims and every one of them took us to an account in Pakistan,” the official said.

Some well-meaning people in India also get taken in by this crusade, just like some people in the Gulf without understanding the main reason, he added.

The official in intelligence stated that complicity of the Al-Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula in the ISI effort could be evidence of an effort to shape global jihad into the narrative that Pakistan PM Imran Khan constantly tried to build all of previous year before the ISI took charge of the task.

The Afghan forces killed at least 28 Taliban militants during separate clashes in southern Kandahar province of Afghanistan, the security officials said according to khaama.com.

Gen. Tadin Khan, the Police Chief of Kandahar, said the Taliban militants attacked security posts in Sargo area of Spin Boldak district.

He said the Afghan forces effectively responded to the attack, killing at least 16 Taliban militants and wounding at least 9 others.

Gen. Tadin Khan further added that the security forces killed 12 Taliban militants and wounded at least 7 others during a similar clash in Mirazar area of Zherai dsitrict.

The Taliban group has not commented regarding the clashes so far.

Eighteen Afghan soldiers were killed and three others injured in a Taliban attack in Takhar province, an official confirmed to asianlite.com.

The attack started at midnight after dozens of Taliban militants launched an offensive on a district police station and a nearby military camp in Khwaja Ghar district, the provincial police spokesman told Xinhua news agency.

The militants who came from mountains tried to overrun the district police station and seize the control of the district, but their plan was thwarted by the security forces.

Several militants also sustained casualties based on the bloodstains on the clash site, the official noted.

The Taliban militant group has not responded to the report so far.

Violence decreased in Afghanistan after a peace deal was signed between the US and the Taliban in Qatar on February 29 as well as a joint declaration issued by the American side and the Afghan government.

However, sporadic clashes and fighting occur in countryside as Taliban militants have been attempting to take territory and consolidate their positions.

Taliban: ‘US violates peace deal’

The Taliban has shared a list of 50 attacks conducted by the US and Afghan forces following the US-Taliban peace deal inked in late February, accusing Washington of violating terms of the agreement, it was reported.

Sharing a three-page document exclusively with TOLO News on Sunday, the Taliban political office in Doha claimed that 33 drone attacks and airstrikes were carried out against Taliban targets in 19 provinces from March 9 to April 10.

The list also includes nine attacks involving rockets and mortar shelling, and eight night-raids.

The Taliban said in the document they have lost 35 of their fighters in 17 of the incidents, and they blame foreign forces for killing 65 civilians in 33 incidents.

This is the first time that the Taliban have provided numbers to back their claims that the US has violated the agreement which was signed after 18 months of negotiations in Doha on February 29.

The US-Taliban deal is facing multiple challenges including a delayed and contentious prisoner release, as well as a delay in the start of intra-Afghan negotiations, which was scheduled in the agreement to start on March 10.

Reacting to the Taliban claims, the top US general in Afghanistan, Gen Scott Miller told TOLO News on Sunday: “All sides, but especially the Taliban, must reduce violence to allow the political process to take hold.”

His spokesman Col Sonny Leggett elaborated that Washington “remains committed” to the deal with the Taliban, adding that the “US Forces-Afghanistan, in accordance with the written terms of the agreement, continue to support and defend the Afghan Security Forces”.

In a report last week, TOLO News said that the Taliban carried out 2,162 attacks following the one-week reduction in violence (RIV) that started on February 22 and led to the signing of a peace agreement.

The Afghan and NATO forces have conducted 425 attacks against the Taliban post RIV period.

The Taliban have also questioned some of the 361 released prisoners, calling them “unidentified.”

The Afghan government, according to sources, also says that from the 60 released prisoners by the Taliban, there are only 17 members of the Afghan forces.

Based on the agreement, the two sides should not attack each other’s bases and military facilities in Afghanistan, and the Taliban should not allow other militant groups to operate in areas under their influence.

Gen Miller travelled to Doha last week to discuss the reduction in violence with the Taliban, and the Taliban have shared their concerns about these attacks with him.

There are disagreements between the US the Taliban on the nature of the attacks and the reasons why these attacks have happened.

According to sources, the US and the Taliban are discussing every single incident through their military channel to examine the reason behind each incident.

An unknown gunman shot dead six local workers from the main American military base north of Afghanistan´s capital and wounded three others, an Afghan official said Friday.

The nine workers, all Afghan nationals, were on their way home late Thursday when a gunman riding a motorcycle opened fire on them about 500 meters (about a quarter mile) from Bagram air base, Parwan provincial governor´s spokeswoman Wahida Shahkar said.

Shahkar said the gunman escaped.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed said the group had nothing to do with the shooting.

The Islamic State affiliate is active in northern areas of Afghanistan and on April 9 the IS claimed responsibility for firing five rockets from a vehicle at Bagram air base. There were were no casualties.

Shahkar said Afghan national security forces began an investigation to find the person who attacked the workers, who provide cleaning services at the base.

The Afghan government and Taliban are in the process of exchanging prisoners as part of a peace deal signed by the U.S. and the Taliban on Feb. 29 in Doha.

The release of up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners and 1,000 government personnel ahead of intra-Afghan negotiations is a condition of the U.S.-Taliban deal.