Islamic State-Khorasan branch is trying to undermine Afghanistan’s Taliban regime
In late September, Afghanistan’s new Taliban leaders ordered their commanders to conduct a full background check on all fighters. The sudden move was prompted by concerns that other extremist groups have infiltrated the Taliban’s ranks.
Senior members of the former Afghan government and one top Taliban official currently in a security role say the leader of ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K), a notorious terror operative whose identity has remained shrouded in mystery for years, is believed to be among the infiltrators. The officials spoke to CBS News on the condition of anonymity.
Some Taliban foot soldiers are believed to have abandoned the group to join ISIS-K or al Qaeda, preferring an even more extreme — and brutal — interpretation of Islam, but these sources say the ISIS faction is working deliberately to undermine the Taliban’s authority from both inside and outside the group. That carries risks not only for Afghanistan, but for the United States and its allies.
Since forming in 2015, ISIS-K has carried out some of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan. It wasn’t immediately clear if the group was behind a devastating bombing on Friday that hit a mosque in Kunduz, leaving scores of people dead. But ISIS-K has a long history of attacking Afghanistan’s Shiite Muslim minority, and it was Shiites targeted in Friday’s blast.
Four of the group’s top commanders were killed by U.S. drones or Afghan security forces over the following four years. (ISIS-K is also known by other acronyms, including ISKP.)
In June 2020, the top job went to a militant known as Shahab al-Muhajir. Most assumed from his name that he was of Arab, not Afghan descent. Two former high-ranking Afghan government security officials and the senior member of the current Taliban regime have told CBS News, however, that he is a veteran of Afghanistan’s domestic insurgency, and that his real name is Sanaullah. (Afghans often use only one name.)
They say he’s a graduate of the Kabul Polytechnic Institute who, according to a voter registration card found by Afghan security forces, is 31 years old. The former Afghan officials say the man now known as al-Muhajir received training in Pakistan from two different extremist groups based there, including the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network.
“Whatever his ethnicity, he has ended up being much better positioned than his predecessors to revive ISKP,” Ex-Trac, an organization that analyzes threats posed by extremist groups, wrote in an August assessment. “His taking the reins of power in mid-2020 culminated in radical change for the organization, change that has seen it transitioning from a fragmented and degraded network into the aggressive phalanx it is today.”
While other ISIS-K commanders have focused on seizing territory, the former Afghan officials say al-Muhajir is part of a more strategic cadre that aims to undermine Afghanistan’s leadership to gain freedom to operate.
The former Afghan security officials say al-Muhajir has managed to keep hiding his real identity and continue operating as a Taliban imposter. One of the former Afghan government security sources said al-Muhajir had even managed to hold a meeting with Taliban deputy head of intelligence Mullah Tajmir Jawad, without the official realizing he was talking to the ISIS-K leader.
A former senior Afghan intelligence officer tells CBS News that about one year ago, “after lots of hard work,” the country’s security forces managed to locate al-Muhajir, but the ISIS-K leader escaped capture. All they found was his national ID card — with his real name on it — and another ID identifying him as a member of the Afghan army.
The other former Afghan security official says captured ISIS-K militants would routinely tell interrogators they’d met al-Muhajir, but “when we showed them photos to identify al-Muhajir, they used to point the finger at the wrong person, meaning even people within ISKP were meeting an imposter, not the real boss.”
“ISKP’s leader Shahab right now is working within Taliban ranks, but the Taliban don’t know him,” the former intelligence official told CBS News. “ISKP in Afghanistan is a live bomb roaming free within the Taliban.”
A senior Taliban official told CBS News on Wednesday that the new Afghan regime does have the previous government’s security files on al-Muhajir, but they haven’t yet tracked him down.
The other former Afghan official told CBS News that ISIS-K is splitting its efforts, with “some of them openly opposing the Taliban, while some of them remain within the Taliban for their own interests, like enemies staying in the enemy’s house and looking for an opportunity, 24/7.”
Source: CBS News
