Arkady Dubnov

journalist, political scientist, expert in Central Asia

On October 15, an explosion thundered in the Afghan Kandahar near the Shiite mosque, dozens of people died. In total, since the Taliban captured Kabul, almost 20 bloody terrorist attacks have already occurred in Afghanistan, for most of them they took responsibility to ISIS. Arkady Dubnov says that two forbidden groups are divided, why the order promised by the Taliban has not been established in Afghanistan, and how all this threatens Russia.

ISIS attacks on Afghanistan

The terrifying terrorist attack, arranged by a suicide terrorist on October 8 in the Shiite mosque of the city of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan during Friday prayer, made a deafening impression even on the Afghans who accustomed to the bloodshed. No one knows exactly how many people died, the numbers are different, from 120 to 150 people, about 200 more were injured.

The equally large -scale attack was committed near Kabul Airport at the end of August, on the sad panic days of the hurry of the US military from Afghanistan. 13 Americans died, the rest of almost 140 victims were Afghans.

In both cases, ISIS took responsibility (prohibited in the Russian Federation), and in the case of the Shiite mosque, the terrorists even indicated that a certains named Mohammad al-Uyguri prepared explosions. The organizers of the attacks are usually not called the name of the suicide bomber, so there is reason to believe that the Igilovites deliberately sought to point out the Uyghurs in their ranks <Turkic -speaking Muslims living in the Sinjiang region in the west of China - The Insider> .

If so, then the goal of the terrorists was to demonstrate to power in Kabul (prohibited in Russia) to the Taliban movement that its flirting with Beijing would be punished. It is known that the consistent struggle against Uyghur separatists -ISIS members is one of the main conditions of China to receive the Taliban recognition of Beijing and its financial and economic support. There is another, how conspiracy, so hostile to the Chinese, the version of the Chinese - they should be beneficial to the public effect of this tragedy, since it can cause hatred of Uyghurs among Afghans.

What is the difference between Taliban and ISIS

But few of the Russians are impressed by the subtleties of the relations between the two Taliban terrorist organizations and ISIS. The main thing is that it acts on the feelings and minds of people when they find out about the next loud terrorist attack in Afghanistan, these are emotions that can be described in two words - Chur me! And a deep rejection of the thought that today Russia can help with the money “this cannibalist regime”, referring to the “Taliban”, with which Moscow is conducting a confidential dialogue.

Indeed, let these terrorists, left to themselves in Afghanistan, where there are no more foreign troops - neither American, no European, nor even, Russian, destroy each other. After all, this is how some Russian chiefs, and after them, analysts and journalists in the mid-2010s reasoned that it was necessary to encourage the departure of Islamist radicals to Syria, to the ranks of ISIS, they say, they would be ground there, it would be easier for us ... No, not all killed. And when the surviving Igilovites moved to Afghanistan, it was found that there are thousands there, and how many accurately, no one knew, either 5 thousand, or 10, or maybe even more.

Until the mid -2015, it was difficult, and there was no need for an external observer to see and understand the difference between these two terrorist “brands”. The main thing is that under their banners, the jihadists who were very distinguishable in appearance against the Afghan government in Kabul, as well as against the troops of the international coalition led by the United States. Nevertheless, there is a difference, and very significant, it is she who determines the shades of the attitude towards them from the outside world in general, both Russia, in particular, and it must be said again aloud.

If the Taliban is exclusively the intra -Afghan military -political force that does not seek to realize its ambitions outside its country (which is confirmed by an almost 30 -year history of the existence of movement), then ISIS is another matter. Since the origin of this terrorist structure, its program goal was to build the World Islamic Caliphate, one of the province was indicated by Khorasan, part of which all of Central Asia and Afghanistan were to become.

Taliban is exclusively intra -Afghan power, and ISIS wants to build a world caliphate

Further, if the Taliban, as a rule, is ethnically and confessional homogeneous and represents Afghan Pashtuns professing orthodox Islam of the Sunni trend and the components of 42% of the almost 40 millionth population of the country (28% of the Tajiks, 10% - Shiites Khazareyas, 8% - Uzbeks, 2% - Turkmens), then in the ranks of ISIS Jihadi International - Tajiks, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs, Arabs, Uyghurs, Chechens, Tatars, Bashkirs ...

It is clear that this motley audience, which was very fat in battles with the wrong and accustomed to the good financing of their “right -handed” in the fatty years for ISIS, when their enemies with the Taliban were general, is not at all motivated with the advent of former allies into power. From here, their desire to transfer their Modus Operandi outside Afghanistan looks logical.

Conflict of interests

The Igilovites who proclaimed at the beginning of 2015 the Igilovites were in a clash with the Taliban when the latter found that their rivals were taking more and more control of the provinces in the east and southeast of the country, which had previously been the estate of the Talibana. The war between the groups either subsided, then flared up, and it stood especially fierce when the field commanders of the Taliban passed over the side of ISIS. This was not forgiven - the traitors caught and cut off their heads.

Since 2017, the Russian leadership publicly outlined its contacts with representatives of the Taliban, explaining this by the need to encourage them to a peaceful solution to the intra -Afghan conflict, as well as the national interests of Russia. The explanations looked unbearable, because back in February 2003, Taliban was recognized in Russia with a terrorist organization and is prohibited. Such reasons looked especially piquant against the backdrop of the total persecution of representatives of the unsystematic opposition in Russia, declared by organizations undesirable in the country ...

2018 Taliban in Moscow

But since world policy now often looks like the lot of cynics and two -dealing, the schizophrenia characteristic of the Russian politician began to get used to it. The main thing that the Russian authorities insist on today, accepting the leaders of the Taliban in Moscow (the last time it was in July 2021, shortly before their triumphal reinforcement in Kabul) is that it is their promise to fight ISIS. Note that according to the Afghan media, only for two months, while the Taliban is ruled in Kabul, 17 terrorist attacks were committed, Igilovites took responsibility for the majority.

Almost every day messages from Afghanistan about armed clashes of the Taliban with their rivals come. They are also separated by commitment to different directions of the Sunni branch of Islam. Igilovites are usually Wahhabis, that is, they are much more radical in relation to kafirama (infidels) than orthodox-sunnis.

Concluding with the Americans on February 29, 2020, the famous agreement in Doha (the capital of Emirate Katar), which was the result of the conclusion of the military contingent of the United States and Afghanistan, the Taliban made an obligation to prevent the country into the pillar of international terrorist organizations. Now this is still a matter of questions, the solutions of which are required by the whole tired of the endless Afghan Gerilla Mir.

Answering this, the chief representative of the Taliban Zabiulla Mujahide said on October 10 that ISIS is a “headache, not a serious threat,” which will soon be stopped. Another representative of Taliban Suhail Shahin said that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan would not cooperate with the United States in the fight against ISIS, the Taliban will cope for themselves, without outside help. It is possible that they will try very hard to justify trust, because, according to informed sources in Afghanistan, in response to a promise to end ISIS, the Americans agreed to leave the air space of Afghanistan inviolable.

Dissatisfied neighbors

So far, these intentions seem either forecasts or by the desire to pass the desired by the real one, the expectation of aggressive attacks from Afghanistan is intensively injured in the neighboring countries. The official Dushanbe is especially zealous in this injection. The leadership of Tajikistan accuses the Taliban Kabul of military preparations on the Afghan-Tajik border, which the leadership of the Taliban was shaken from the Afghan side of the Jamaat Ansarullah groups (they are called Tajik Taliban).

At the head of Jamaat is Mullah Amridddin, one of the former field commanders of the Tajik armed opposition, in the mid-1990s, during the Civil War in Tajikistan, who fought with the pro-communist government of Emomali Rakhmonov (then he had not yet converted his last name for the Tajik is a way). It is believed that Jamaat Ansarullah militants are belligerently tuned in and seek to allegedly invade Tajikistan and overthrow the regime of Emomali Rahmon.

But the “leader of the nation, the founder of peace and national unity” in Tajikistan is not afraid of aggressors, he is ready to fight back, besides, behind him, the entire military-political block of the CSTO, led by Russia, who will not give offense of one of his members, for almost 30 years heading all the Tajiks (the author had a chance to be in November 1992 in one of the state farms of culture near Hodent A witness to the historical event-the ascent to the power of "his Excellency", as the former Soviet submariner, Mr. Rakhmonov began to be called years later).

On October 22-23, on the territory of Tajikistan, the border with Afghanistan will take place of military exercises of the CSTO “Battle Brotherhood-2021”. Russian Su-25 attack aircraft from the Kant base in Kyrgyzstan have already been transferred there. When with such efforts they want to avoid hostilities on the border between the two countries, where civil wars are a common thing, wait for trouble ...