{"id":193470,"date":"2021-08-30T12:00:07","date_gmt":"2021-08-30T11:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=193470"},"modified":"2021-08-28T10:27:07","modified_gmt":"2021-08-28T09:27:07","slug":"who-profits-from-the-kabul-suicide-bombing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/08\/who-profits-from-the-kabul-suicide-bombing\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Profits from the Kabul Suicide Bombing?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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ISIS-Khorasan aims to prove to Afghans and to the outside world that the Taliban cannot secure the capital.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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Medical and hospital staff carry an injured man out of a car for treatment after two blasts, which killed at least five and wounded a dozen, outside the airport in Kabul on August 26, 2021. Photo: AFP \/ Wakil Kohsar<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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27 Aug 2021 – <\/em>The horrific Kabul suicide bombing introduces an extra vector in an already incandescent situation: It aims to prove, to Afghans and to the outside world, that the nascent Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is incapable of securing the capital.As it stands, at least 103 people \u2013 90 Afghans (including at least 28 Taliban) and 13 American servicemen \u2013 were killed and at least 1,300 injured, according to the Afghan Health Ministry.<\/p>\n

Responsibility for the bombing came via a statement on the Telegram channel of Amaq Media, the official Islamic State (ISIS) news agency. This means it came from centralized ISIS command, even as the perpetrators were members of ISIS-Khorasan, or ISIS-K.<\/p>\n

Presuming to inherit the historical and cultural weight of ancient Central Asian lands that from the time of imperial Persia stretched all the way to the western Himalayas, that spin-off defiles the name of Khorasan.<\/p>\n

The suicide bomber who carried out \u201cthe martyrdom operation near Kabul airport\u201d was identified as one Abdul Rahman al-Logari. That would suggest he\u2019s an Afghan, from nearby Logar province. And that would also suggest that the bombing may have been organized by an ISIS-Khorasan sleeper cell. Sophisticated electronic analysis of their communications would be able to prove it \u2013 tools that the Taliban don\u2019t have.<\/p>\n

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The suicide bomber Abdul Rahman al-Logari as presented by ISIS propaganda. Photo: Handout \/ Daesh<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The way social media-savvy ISIS chose to spin the carnage deserves careful scrutiny. The statement on Amaq Media blasts the Taliban for being \u201cin a partnership\u201d with the US military in the evacuation of \u201cspies.\u201d<\/p>\n

It mocks the \u201csecurity measures imposed by the American forces and the Taliban militia in the capital Kabul,\u201d as its \u201cmartyr\u201d was able to reach \u201ca distance of no less than five meters from the American forces, who were supervising the procedures.\u201d<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s clear that the newly reborn Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and the former occupying power are facing the same enemy. ISIS-Khorasan comprises a bunch of fanatics, termed takfiris<\/a> because they define fellow Muslims \u2013 in this case the Taliban \u2013 as \u201capostates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Founded in 2015 by emigr\u00e9 jihadis dispatched to southwest Pakistan, ISIS-K is a dodgy beast. Its current head is one Shahab al-Mujahir, who was a mid-level commander of the Haqqani network\u00a0headquartered in North Waziristan in the Pakistani tribal areas, itself a collection of disparate mujahideen and would-be jihadis under the family umbrella.<\/p>\n

Washington branded the Haqqani network as a terrorist organization way back in 2010, and treats several members as global terrorists, including\u00a0Sirajuddin Haqqani, the head of the family after the death of the founder Jalaluddin.<\/p>\n

Up to now,\u00a0Sirajuddin was the Taliban deputy leader for the eastern provinces \u2013 on the same level with Mullah Baradar, the head of the political office in Doha, who was actually released from Guantanamo in 2014.<\/p>\n

Crucially,\u00a0Sirajuddin\u2019s uncle, Khalil Haqqani,\u00a0formerly in charge of the network\u2019s foreign financing,\u00a0<\/strong>is now in charge of Kabul security and working as a diplomat 24\/7.<\/p>\n

The previous ISIS-K leaders were snuffed out by US airstrikes in 2015 and 2016. ISIS-K started to become a real destabilizing force in 2020 when the regrouped band attacked Kabul University, a Doctor Without Borders maternity ward, the Presidential palace and the airport.<\/p>\n

NATO intel picked up by a UN report<\/a> attributes a maximum of 2,200 jihadis to ISIS-K, split into small cells. Significantly, the absolute majority are non-Afghans: Iraqis, Saudis, Kuwaitis, Pakistanis, Uzbeks, Chechens and Uighurs.<\/p>\n

The real danger is that ISIS-K works as a sort of magnet for all manners of disgruntled former Taliban or discombobulated regional warlords with nowhere to go.<\/p>\n

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IS-K fighters in training in Afghanistan. Photo: Facebook<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The perfect soft target<\/h4>\n

The civilian commotion these past few days around Kabul airport was the perfect soft target for trademark ISIS carnage.<\/p>\n

Zabihullah Mujahid \u2013 the new Taliban minister of information in Kabul, who in that capacity talks to global media every day \u2013 is the one who actually warned NATO members about an imminent ISIS-K suicide bombing. Brussels diplomats confirmed it.<\/p>\n

In parallel, it\u2019s no secret among intel circles in Eurasia that ISIS-K has become disproportionally more powerful since 2020 because of a transportation ratline from Idlib, in Syria, to eastern Afghanistan, informally known in spook talk as Daesh Airlines.<\/p>\n

Moscow and Tehran, even at very high diplomatic levels, have squarely blamed the US-UK axis as the key facilitators. Even the BBC reported in late 2017 on hundreds of ISIS jihadis given safe passage out of Raqqa, and out of Syria, right in front of the Americans.<\/p>\n

The Kabul bombing took place after two very significant events.<\/p>\n

The first one was Mujahid\u2019s claim during an American NBC News interview earlier this week that there is \u201cno proof\u201d Osama bin Laden was behind 9\/11<\/a> \u2013 an argument that I had already hinted was coming in this podcast<\/a> the previous week.<\/p>\n

This means the Taliban have already started a campaign to disconnect themselves from the \u201cterrorist\u201d label associated with 9\/11. The next step may involve arguing that the execution of 9\/11 was set up in Hamburg, the operational details coordinated from two apartments in New Jersey.<\/p>\n

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Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid holds a press conference in Kabul on Tuesday. Photo: AFP \/ Haroon Sabawoon \/ Anadolu Agency<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nothing to do with Afghans. And everything staying within the parameters of the official narrative \u2013 but that\u2019s another immensely complicated story.<\/p>\n

The Taliban will need to show that \u201cterrorism\u201d has been all about their lethal enemy, ISIS, and way beyond old school al-Qaeda, which they harbored up to 2001. But why should they be shy about making such claims? After all, the United States rehabilitated Jabhat Al-Nusra \u2013 or al-Qaeda in Syria \u2013 as \u201cmoderate rebels.\u201d<\/p>\n

The origin of ISIS is incandescent material. ISIS was spawned in Iraq prison camps, its core made of Iraqis, their military skills derived from ex-officers in Saddam\u2019s army, a wild bunch fired way back in 2003 by Paul Bremmer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority.<\/p>\n

ISIS-K duly carries the work of ISIS from Southwest Asia to the crossroads of Central and South Asia in Afghanistan.\u00a0There\u2019s no credible evidence that ISIS-K has ties with Pakistani military intel.<\/p>\n

On the contrary: ISIS-K is loosely aligned with the Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, Islamabad\u2019s mortal enemy. TTP\u2019s agenda has nothing to do with the moderate Mullah Baradar-led Afghan Taliban who participated in the Doha process.<\/p>\n

SCO to the rescue<\/h4>\n

The other significant event tied to the Kabul bombing was that it took place only one day after yet another phone call between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.<\/p>\n

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A June video meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin aand Chinese President Xi Jinping, who do this all the time. Phto: AFP \/ Aleksey Nikolskyi \/ Sputnik<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Kremlin stressed the pair\u2019s \u201creadiness to step up efforts to combat threats of terrorism and drug trafficking coming from the territory of Afghanistan\u201d; the \u201cimportance of establishing peace\u201d; and \u201cpreventing the spread of instability to adjacent regions.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that led to the clincher: They jointly committed to \u201cmake the most of the potential\u201d of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which was founded 20 years ago as the \u201cShanghai Five\u201d, even before 9\/11, to fight \u201cterrorism, separatism and extremism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The SCO summit is next month in Dushanbe \u2013 when Iran, most certainly, will be admitted as a full member. The Kabul bombing offers the SCO the opportunity to forcefully step up.<\/p>\n

Whichever complex tribal coalition is formed to govern the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, it will be intertwined with the full apparatus of regional economic and security cooperation, led by the three main actors of Eurasia integration: Russia, China and Iran.<\/p>\n

The record shows Moscow has all that it takes to help the Islamic Emirate against ISIS-K in Afghanistan. After all, the Russians flushed ISIS out of all significant parts of Syria and confined them to the Idlib cauldron.<\/p>\n

In the end, no one aside from ISIS wants a terrorized Afghanistan, just as no one wants a civil war in Afghanistan. So the order of business indicates not only an SCO-led frontal fight against existing ISIS-K terror cells in Afghanistan but also an integrated campaign to drain any potential social base for the takfiris in Central and South Asia.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Pepe Escobar is a Brazilian independent geopolitical analyst. He is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and TV shows ranging from the US to East Asia. He is the former roving correspondent for <\/em>Asia Times Online. He has been a foreign correspondent since 1985, and has lived in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Washington, Bangkok and Hong Kong. Even before 9\/11 he specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central and East Asia, with an emphasis on Big Power geopolitics and energy wars. He is the author of <\/em>Globalistan<\/a> (2007),<\/em> Red Zone Blues<\/a> (2007), <\/em>Obama Does Globalistan<\/a> (2009), <\/em>Empire of Chaos<\/a> (2014) and <\/em>2030<\/a> (2015), all by Nimble Books.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 asiatimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

27 Aug 2021 – The horrific Kabul suicide bombing by ISIS-Khorasan aims to introduce an extra vector in an already incandescent situation: to prove, to Afghans and to the outside world, that the nascent Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Taliban, is incapable of securing the capital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":193472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[219],"tags":[93,94,133,1106,267,1126,487,1050,504,91,86,112,880,484,639,95,70,126,492,481],"class_list":["post-193470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-asia-2","tag-afghanistan","tag-central-asia","tag-cia","tag-drones","tag-geopolitics","tag-hegemony","tag-human-rights","tag-imperialism","tag-international-relations","tag-nato","tag-occupation","tag-pentagon","tag-state-terrorism","tag-taliban","tag-uk","tag-us-military","tag-usa","tag-violence","tag-war-on-terror","tag-warfare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}