– By Gauri Srivastava
With the Islamic State and Taliban baring fangs at each other since the latter’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2020, the feud between them is patently visible. Both these armed militant groups claim to be the legitimate face of jihad. They have been at odds with each other since 2015 when ISIS established its regional offshoot in Afghanistan, a Taliban stronghold. This new division of ISIS, called the Islamic State-Khorasan, was devised to establish a base in the Khorasan region (comprising modern-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and parts of Central Asia) to broaden its vision of a global Islamic caliphate. The ISIS, and the ISK by extension, subscribes to the stringent ideology of Salafi-Jihadism, which differs from that held by the Taliban, of Deobandi Islam with a dash of Wahhabism.
The American withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 and the Taliban’s rise to power created a precarious situation in regional geopolitics. Great world powers were left struggling to devise game plans congruent to their strategic positions. ISK, taking advantage of this unstable situation, increased the frequency of its attacks, intending to disrupt any sense of stability in the country. An additional motive was to expose the Taliban’s incompetence as a governing body. The yet-illegitimate government’s ham-handed efforts to tackle its chief regional enemy proved futile and even pushed the cadre of its own rank towards the ISK.
ISIS’ global vision of an Islamic caliphate sets it apart from the largely local vision of the Taliban. The Taliban’s primary objective was to liberate Afghanistan from foreign occupation and establish a strictly Sharia-led Islamic government within its national boundaries. Both these organisations stir up trouble in India, albeit separately.
The Taliban have close links with the Pakistani Inter-State Intelligence. This association is reflected in the appointment of members of the anti-India Haqqani network to important positions in the Afghan Taliban interim government. It is also apparent by the deployment of suicide squads in the Taliban military; a terrorist tactic pioneered by the Haqqani network. In October 2021, the targeted attacks on individuals belonging to minority communities in Kashmir were ascribed to ISI-backed militants. This Pakistani ISI and Taliban combination only increases the potential threat to India.
Any move by the Taliban to sharpen its military apparatus, either through the recruitment of suicide squads in its army ranks or through renewed relationships with terrorist groups in other countries (like the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan), might prove to be grievous for India in the near future.
The Taliban’s good rapport with Al-Qaeda and other militant groups that target India in specific, for example, the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, will facilitate the spillover of tactics and technology from one terrorist organization to another. All the more so since the links are already in place. It won’t be long before extremist groups in the northern part of India and militant organisations operating from the other side of the border get their hands on these technologies and use them to create friction in an already strained environment.
CURRENT SCENARIO
Now that the Taliban have formed an interim government, they are seeking the international community’s support to gain legitimacy in the international order. They have made an extravagant promise of not letting terrorist organisations use Afghanistan as their training ground. But taking into consideration their historical trends, from when they were in power from 1996 to 2001, and the heterogeneity of strands within their formal system, these assurances sound like air castles.
The ISK went a step ahead and directly involved itself in Indian affairs. It actively spread India specific propaganda through its magazine ‘Sawt al Hind’, it also claimed responsibility for an attack on a street vendor in Kashmir and warned that it wouldn’t stay behind in its endeavour to “free the Muslims of India from the unjust rules of disbelievers.” The ISK threat in India has increased significantly as religious tensions in the largest democracy surged. The ISIS affiliate hopes to secure foot-soldiers and gain traction from among those in the disgruntled Muslim community. It succeeded in its efforts when four women left the country to join the group in 2021. These women were a part of the Popular Front India (PFI), an extremist Islamic organisation, which has had more than a hundred of its members join various radical Islamic groups from its inception in 2006.
The killing of ISIS head Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi in February 2022, and prior to him, of the then-leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in October 2019 by U.S. raids in Syria, points to the fact that the death of the Baron doesn’t signify an end to his ideology. The group manages to build itself back, and often even stronger than before. Therefore the threat of ISK also continues to loom over India.
It is irrefutable that following the Taliban’s upgrade from an insurgent group to a governing body, radical Islamic groups have gained new vigour. Whether it is Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State, regardless of the group’s relationship with the Taliban, the feeling of triumph is there. If a terrorist group could topple a democratically elected government within ten days of the withdrawal of a foreign superpower from its country, then the efforts of other terrorist organizations could similarly yield positive results. Armed with this new fearless approach, insurgent groups are trying to go global. A new era of increased militant activity is, without doubt, a clear possibility.
Policy Suggestions
India should take proactive steps to integrate the Kashmiri population within mainstream India’s fold. The Kashmiri youth is at a greater risk of being recruited by militant organisations as greater alienation by their fellow countrymen often drives them to the ranks of the militants. Propaganda from across the border must be comprehensively dealt with. A lot of brainwashing and indoctrination takes place because of the free flow of unchecked propaganda. The government should find alternative ways to rein in communication between militant groups, rather than curbing internet and network services. The more the common man is troubled, the lesser the regard will he have for the state and the better will be the reasons he’ll find to join anti-government forces.
In addition to providing aid to the Afghan public, India should also take steps to engage with the Taliban, mainly through the back channels. Isolating the new interim government of the Taliban while our neighbors communicate and build strategic (but informal) relations with them will only prove detrimental for us in the long run. The Taliban surely harbours anti-India feelings, but given their status as a governing agency now, interacting with them would be more beneficial to us than not engaging at all.
ISK, and ISIS by extension, poses a greater threat to India. It comes in with a strong resolve and an even stronger propaganda spreading mechanism, at a time when the religious situation is already sensitive in the country. Though it may not succeed in its actual objective of forming a global Islamic caliphate, any damage it does to the country is enough to damage the country’s collective psyche.
Both the militant groups can individually cause havoc to India, no matter what the relationship between the two is. It’ll be on India to protect its citizens and territories by engaging in meaningful dialogues with like-minded allies and taking steps toward minimising the impact of propaganda.
onducted a total of five underground nuclear tests, breaking a 24-year self-imposed moratorium on nuclear testing. Pakistan followed, claiming 5 tests on May 28, 1998, and an additional test on May 30. The unannounced tests created a global storm of criticism, as well as a serious setback for decades of U.S. nuclear nonproliferation efforts in South Asia. On May 13, 1998, President Clinton imposed economic and military sanctions on India, mandated by Section 102 of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA), and applied the same sanctions to Pakistan on May 30. Some effects of the sanctions on India included: termination of $21 million in FY1998 economic development assistance; postponement of $1.7 billion in lending by the International Financial Institutions (IFI), as supported by the Group of Eight (G-8) leading industrial nations; prohibition on loans or credit from U.S. banks to the government of India; and termination of Foreign Military Sales under the Arms Export Control Act. Humanitarian assistance, food, or other agricultural commodities are excepted from sanctions under the law. 
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