Several former Afghan government troops and intelligence agents have defected to Islamic State, the terrorist group which carried out yesterday’s attack on a hospital in Kabul.
At least 20 people were killed and dozens wounded when militants stormed Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan military hospital in the capital. Witnesses said a suicide bomber blasted his way through the gates of the compound before gunmen rushed through the breach, firing on patients and staff as they tried to flee.
Taliban security forces killed the attackers after a lengthy gun battle.
With the Taliban struggling to impose order on the stricken and impoverished country since toppling the US-backed government in August, Isis is gaining strength. It has been recruiting new fighters among desperate civilians lured by the promise of a salary as the Afghan economy crumbles, triggering mass starvation.
Among the new Islamic State recruits are members of elite Afghan military units and intelligence agents. Left behind when the last US troops who trained them withdrew, these men have spent weeks in hiding as the Taliban hunts down members of the former regime under President Ghani.
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Several have defected to Islamic State-Khorasan Province, the Afghan affiliate known as Isis-K. Their defection could strengthen Isis with new battlefield experience and skills in intelligence-gathering.
One former Afghan commando, who joined the resistance movement that held out against the Taliban takeover in the Panjshir Valley, north of Kabul, confirmed that some of his former comrades had joined Isis-K since the opposition was broken in September.
“The Taliban continues to hunt down former Afghan security and intelligence officials across the country. Some were kidnapped and killed by the Taliban and their families are being threatened,” he told The Times from hiding. “The only resistance now is through Daesh [Isis], and joining Daesh is better than falling into the hands of the Taliban. I know dozens of former military and intelligence people ready to join Daesh to fight the Taliban and get paid. They have no choice.”
The number of military defectors, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, remains relatively small. However, officials in several parts of Afghanistan said Isis-K was quietly expanding into new territory from its stronghold in the eastern province of Nangarhar as the country’s economic crisis deepens, however.
Lal Agha, a former security official under the Ghani administration whose name has been changed at his request, said that Isis-K was actively recruiting in several districts of his home province of Zabul, a southern Taliban stronghold.
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“Daesh recently started activities in the province, with many joining from the last [Ghani] regime. Former government employees have been left with nothing,” he said. “In the strategic districts of Dai Chopin, Arghandab and Khaki Afghan particularly, Daesh activities are much more visible now. This is something serious the Taliban must worry about. As long as poverty drives people, the group will keep expanding.”
The reports of a resurgent Isis and defections from former Afghan forces trained by the US at a cost of billions of dollars will increase the pressure on President Biden after criticism for the chaotic and humiliating retreat in August.
The hasty American withdrawal after the Taliban advance saw hundreds of US civilians left behind, along with thousands of Afghan staff who had worked with Nato forces and were targeted by the Taliban.
The evacuation was marred by an Isis suicide attack on the crowds at Kabul airport that killed 13 US service personnel and about 90 Afghan civilians. A botched retaliatory drone strike on suspected Isis militants in Kabul killed ten innocent civilians, including seven children.
Biden’s justification for the withdrawal, that terrorist groups in Afghanistan could no longer threaten the US, has been persistently undermined by US and Western intelligence reports. Colin Kahl, Biden’s undersecretary of defence for policy, told the Senate armed services committee last week that Isis-K could develop the capability to launch attacks outside Afghanistan within a year, and admitted: “We actually are fairly certain they have the intention to do so.”
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John Bolton, the former national security adviser to President Trump, wrote in The Washington Post this week: “Today, post-withdrawal, Americans are unmistakably more vulnerable to terrorism’s threat.”
Isis-K was depleted by a massive campaign of US airstrikes under Trump and a ground war waged by the Taliban to stamp out its rival in Nangarhar. The group has continued to launch mass-casualty attacks, however, particularly targeting the Shia minority. More than 50 Shia worshippers were killed in a bombing at a mosque in the northern city of Kunduz last month.
Abu Omar Khorasani, the leader of Isis-K, was killed by Taliban fighters in August when the Kabul jail he was in was overrun, but hundreds of Islamic State fighters were freed from Afghan prisons as the insurgents advanced across the country this summer.
The US has floated the possibility of co-ordinating military operations with the Taliban against Isis. The Taliban has publicly rejected the idea, insisting it was now responsible for security in the new Islamic emirate.
Isis is increasingly attractive to former Afghan soldiers and police who have not been paid for months. Hundreds of thousands of security personnel are unemployed and fearful, despite Taliban promises of an amnesty.
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“It is clear now that when members of old regime are trapped inside with no hope, what are they going to do? They will join anyone who will pay their salary,” Najib Khan, a government employee in Kabul, said. “Well-trained Afghan soldiers should not be left outside of the loop, or it could be another calamity for us.”
