Unveiling the IS-K Threat: From Kabul to Moscow, a Wake-Up Call for Canada

An attack in Moscow underscores the continuing reach of terrorist organizations

BY: MUSTAFA ARYAN /
29 APRIL, 2024   

The aftermath of the recent terrorist attack on the Moscow Crocus City Hall music venue. Image: Wikimedia Commons



The Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), a regional affiliate of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group primarily based in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Central Asia, has recently garnered attention due to its escalating activities and global ambitions. The group’s attack on the Moscow Crocus City concert hall, as one example, has further elevated its status as a global terrorist group, sparking concern among nations worldwide.

The term ‘Khorasan’ refers to a historical region encompassing parts of modern-day Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Central Asia. As for IS-K it was established in 2015 when disaffected Taliban members pledged allegiance to the IS, marking the expansion of IS influence beyond its primary territories at the time in Iraq and Syria. Hafiz Saeed Khan, a Pakistani national and former Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander, was appointed as the inaugural emir of the IS-K province. Khan, along with key TTP figures such as spokesman Sheikh Maqbool and numerous district chiefs, initially pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the first caliph of the IS, in October 2014. These individuals, including Khan, were among the founding members of the Khorasan Shura, the group’s original leadership council.

IS-K shares the overarching IS goal of establishing a global caliphate but focuses its operations within the Khorasan region. The group’s activities, characterized by violent attacks against both military and civilian targets, exploit Afghanistan’s ongoing political instability and security challenges.

Since forming in 2015, IS-K has been involved in numerous terrorist activities, including attacks on schools and hospitals in Afghanistan. After the return of the Taliban to power in 2021, IS-K also conducted several high-profile attacks in Afghanistan, including the suicide bombing in August 2021 that killed 13 American military personnel and at least 169 Afghans in Kabul during the hasty U.S. withdrawal from the country. From the end of 2022, to the beginning of 2023, embassies in Kabul belonging to Pakistan and Russia were struck by IS-K extremists. Additionally, they targeted a hotel housing Chinese business delegates and carried out an assault at a military air base. In March 2024, IS-K also organised a suicide bombing in Kandahar that resulted in at least 21 deaths and left more than 50 people injured. This incident underscored IS-K’s influence and its ability to target even the Taliban heartland.

IS-K activities have not been limited to Afghanistan. The group has carried out mass-casualty assaults in Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Türkiye and Uzbekistan. Additionally, it has pursued operations targeting the U.S. and Europe. The IS-K attack on the Moscow concert hall resulted in 145 dead and some 500 wounded, making it as one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in recent history and the deadliest attack in Russia in two decades. Indeed, the attack in Moscow signified a significant shift in the group’s operations, demonstrating an expanding capacity to inflict terror beyond its home base of Afghanistan. By reaching Moscow, IS-K also signaled its geographic reach to strike anywhere in the world.

The UN Security Council reported in June 2023 that the number of IS-K militants in Afghanistan ranged from 4,000 to 6,000, including family members. Other regional and international terrorist groups actively operating in Afghanistan include the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, the Islamic Jihad Group, Khatiba Imam al-Bukhari and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

Most of the terrorist groups that fought alongside the Taliban now find themselves isolated as their Taliban allies have transitioned into government roles and positions of power. The fighters from these groups, now without a clear purpose, could potentially be recruited by IS-K which has demonstrated the capacity to absorb fighters from other groups. And a potential influx of new members could pose an increased threat to regional stability.

Retired General Frank McKenzie, who commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan during the 2021 withdrawal, issued a stark warning recently regarding the ongoing threat of terrorism. Despite the absence of recent terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, General McKenzie cautioned that the threat has not dissipated and may, in fact, be on the rise. He highlighted that the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan has emboldened IS-K and increased the likelihood of further attacks not only against the U.S. but also its allies and other nations worldwide.

IS-K has been using various means to spread its propaganda, one of which is through online publications. A significant contributor to these publications, especially in 2023, was a mysterious writer who identified himself as ‘the Canadian’. This individual, who goes by the name ‘Sulaiman Dawood al-Kanadie’, has been actively writing for the ‘Voice of Khurasan’, an online publication produced by IS-K and his contributions cover a wide range of topics including a demand for “a jihadist invasion of Israel.”

The presence of such a person in Canada is a cause of concern for authorities, as it indicates the potential for IS-K’s influence to spread beyond its primary region of operation. Additionally, there have been instances where Canadian citizens have traveled abroad to join the IS or engage in related activities. In 2015, the Canadian government estimated that 180 Canadians had travelled overseas to fight in various conflicts, including with IS and other jihadist groups, with approximately 60 having already returned.

Retired U.S. General David Petraeus, who led NATO and U.S. Forces in Afghanistan between July 2010 and July 2011, and served as the Director of the CIA from September 2011 until November 2012, highlighted recently on The West Block hosted by Mercedes Stephenson that the risk of a terror attack in Canada was “elevated” following the Moscow attack. The presence of IS-K propaganda in Canada, particularly the contributions of ‘the Canadian’ to the ‘Voice of Khurasan’ underscores this threat. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) also stated this year “that it is keeping tabs on ISIS-K [IS-K] and forecasts the group will continue to be active for at least the remainder of the year.” This acknowledgment by CSIS suggests that there might be other individuals or networks connected to ‘the Canadian’ and although he is just one person his influence, especially domestically, could be substantial.

The potential implications of IS-K threats for Canada’s national security are significant and in Canada the RCMP is tasked to track and prevent terrorist threats. However, the presence of IS-K propaganda and the activities of ‘the Canadian’ highlight the risk of radicalization within Canada’s borders, which could potentially lead to homegrown terror attacks, posing a direct threat to the safety of Canadian citizens.

Canada’s approach to countering terrorism and radicalization, such as our National Strategy on Countering Radicalization to Violence, the Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams (INSETs), and the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence, collectively mitigate risks associated with terrorism and radicalization. However, rapidly changing terrorist threats require continuous and robust efforts and should include enhanced surveillance by strengthening internet monitoring to prevent the spread of extremist propaganda within Canada, implementing additional counter-radicalization programs, and raising public awareness about the threats posed by extremist groups.

Furthermore, Canada also finds itself in a bit of an intelligence vortex when it comes to many of the locations IS-K operates in overseas. For example, Canada severed diplomatic relations with Iran and Syria in 2012 and does not recognize the Taliban government. Therefore, international collaboration amongst agencies in Canada and our allies plays a crucial role in mitigating threats by sharing what intelligence is available, coordinating counter-terrorism efforts, and supporting activities that counter IS-K activities.

Indeed, collaboration will continue to be crucial in addressing the multifaceted nature of the IS-K global threat while also bolstering Canada’s defence against terrorism.

MUSTAFA ARYAN
Research Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto

Malala Yousafzai vows support for Gaza after backlash

Lahore (Pakistan) (AFP) – Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai on Thursday condemned Israel and reaffirmed her support for Palestinians in Gaza, after a backlash in her native Pakistan over a Broadway musical she co-produced with former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.


Issued on: 25/04/2024 - 

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai participates in a panel discussion in Johannesburg in December 2023 

© PHILL MAGAKOE / AFP/File

Yousafzai, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, has been condemned by some for partnering with Clinton, an outspoken supporter of Israel's war against Hamas.

The musical, titled "Suffs," depicts the American women's suffrage campaign for the right to vote in the 20th century and has been playing in New York since last week.

"I want there to be no confusion about my support for the people of Gaza," Yousafzai wrote on X, the former Twitter. "We do not need to see more dead bodies, bombed schools and starving children to understand that a ceasefire is urgent and necessary."

She added: "I have and will continue to condemn the Israeli government for its violations of international law and war crimes."

Pakistan has seen many fiercely emotional pro-Palestinian protests since the war in Gaza began last October.

Yusafzai's "theatre collaboration with Hillary Clinton -- who stands for America's unequivocal support for genocide of Palestinians -- is a huge blow to her credibility as a human rights activist," popular Pakistani columnist Mehr Tarar wrote on social media platform X on Wednesday.

"I consider it utterly tragic."

Whilst Clinton has backed a military campaign to remove Hamas and rejected demands for a ceasefire, she has also explicitly called for protections for Palestinian civilians.

Yousafzai has publically condemned the civilian casualties and called for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The New York Times reported the 26-year-old wore a red-and-black pin to the "Suffs" premier last Thursday, signifying her support for a ceasefire.

But author and academic Nida Kirmani said on X that Yousafzai's decision to partner with Clinton was "maddening and heartbreaking at the same time. What an utter disappointment."

The war began with an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of around 1,170 people, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures. Hamas militants also abducted 250 people and Israel estimates 129 of them remain in Gaza, including 34 who the military says are dead.

Clinton served as America's top diplomat during former president Barack Obama's administration, which oversaw a campaign of drone strikes targeting Taliban militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan's borderlands.

Yousafzai earned her Nobel Peace Prize after being shot in the head by the Pakistani Taliban as she pushed for girls' education as a teenager in 2012.

However, the drone war killed and maimed scores of civilians in Yousafzai's home region, spurring more online criticism of the youngest Nobel Laureate, who earned the prize at 17.

Yousafzai is often viewed with suspicion in Pakistan, where critics accuse her of pushing a Western feminist and liberal political agenda on the conservative country.

© 2024 AFP

What's Behind The Deadly Surge Of Violence In Pakistan's Balochistan?

April 23, 2024 
By Abubakar Siddique

A man walks past charred truck containers torched by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) in the central Bolan district in Balochistan Province on January 30.

Pakistan's southwestern province of Balochistan has been the scene of a low-level insurgency and a brutal government crackdown for decades.

But the vast and resource-rich province -- home to the South Asian country's ethnic Baluch minority -- has witnessed a surge in deadly attacks in recent months.

The gun attacks and suicide bombings have targeted Pakistani security forces as well as foreign nationals.

Who Is Behind The Attacks?

Most of the attacks have been claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), a separatist militant group and U.S.-designated terrorist organization.

The Majeed Brigade, the BLA’s suicide squad, is believed to have carried out the most complex attacks.

SEE ALSO:
Pakistani Protests: Baluch Women Seek Answers, Justice In Disappearance Of Loved Ones

The BLA is considered the largest armed group operating in Balochistan. It is allied with the Baloch Liberation Front, the other major separatist militant group active in the province. Experts believe the BLA has several thousand members.

Last year, Baluch militants carried out 110 attacks, according to the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies, an Islamabad-based think tank. In the first three months of 2024 alone, the groups have launched 62 attacks, suggesting a sharp rise.

Who Are They Targeting?

The BLA is targeting the Pakistani Army and police and has been blamed for killing Chinese workers.

Since January, the group has attacked government offices in the port city of Gwadar, the lynchpin of Chinese investments in energy and infrastructure in Pakistan. The BLA also attacked Pakistan's largest naval air force base and attempted to overrun the strategic town of Mach.

Assassinations and improvised-explosive-device (IED) attacks have been reported almost daily.

A general view of Gwadar port, which is the lynchpin of Chinese investments in Pakistan. (file photo)

"Anyone affiliated with the state's crackdown in Balochistan is their target," said an Islamabad-based expert who tracks the region and spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

Zafar Baloch, a Balochistan researcher based in Britain, says the BLA and other separatist groups seek independence from Pakistan. The groups have demanded that the Pakistani military leave Balochistan and for China to end its "exploitative" projects in the province.

SEE ALSO:
Cross-Border Strikes A Major Escalation In Long-Running Iran-Pakistan Dispute

The Baluchis blame Islamabad for exploiting the vast natural resources in Balochistan and committing grave human rights abuses in the impoverished region.

Why Was There A Sharp Increase In Attacks?

The expert in Islamabad said the "recruitment of the separatist militant organizations has skyrocketed" recently. That, the analyst said, has enabled the groups to "launch more attacks."

The disputed February elections, marred by widespread allegations of fraud, added "fuel to the fire" because they deprived the Baluchis of real political representation, the analyst says.

The Baluch youth, the analyst says, do not "see any avenue for expressing their dissent."

Baluch political parties, which had formed most provincial governments in the past, lost power in the controversial elections.

Sarafaz Bugti, a Baluch politician who is backed by the military, now heads the provincial government.

Baloch, the Britain-based researcher, said that "Islamabad's counterinsurgency strategy, based on a militarized approach, is the root cause" of instability in Balochistan.

A man looks at charred shops and a vehicle torched by the BLA militants in Bolan district, Balochistan on January 30.

Activists have accused the Pakistan military of the enforced disappearances of thousands of people and a "kill-and-dump" policy against political activists and suspected armed separatists.

Baloch says Islamabad's suppression of a sit-in protest by the relatives of Baluch victims of forced disappearances and unlawful killings in January dented the community's hopes for a political solution to their woes.

Are Baluch Separatists Growing In Strength?

Analysts say the Taliban takeover of neighboring Afghanistan has boosted the capabilities of armed groups in the region, including Baluch separatist groups.

Some of the military gear and weapons left behind after the U.S. military withdrawal in 2021 and seized by the Taliban have turned up and been used by Baluch armed groups.

The influx of U.S. weapons has "opened new avenues for these groups to thrive," Baloch said.

SEE ALSO:
What Is Jaish Al-Adl, The Separatist Group Targeting Iranian Forces?

The researcher says the BLA has also evolved in recent years. Once led by tribal figures, the group is now run by educated middle-class professionals who think in "modern and unconventional ways." Since 2018, several Baluch separatist groups have coalesced around the BLA.

Baloch says the group has used digital and social media to attract new recruits and cultivate sympathy from the civilian population.

Pakistan is not willing to address the deep-rooted political grievances that keep Balochistan unstable, the Islamabad-based analyst says.

"If 20 years of kinetic operations have not solved anything," the analyst said. "It will not solve anything in the next 20 years."    

Abubakar Siddique a journalist for RFE/RL's Radio Azadi, specializes in the coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is the author of The Pashtun Question: The Unresolved Key To The Future Of Pakistan And Afghanistan. He is also one of the authors of the Azadi Briefing, a weekly newsletter that unpacks the key issues in Afghanistan.

 

A Brief History of Kill Lists, from Langley to Lavender

by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies Posted onApril 17, 2024

The Israeli online magazine +972 has published a detailed report on Israel’s use of an artificial intelligence (AI) system called “Lavender” to target thousands of Palestinian men in its bombing campaign in Gaza. When Israel attacked Gaza after October 7, the Lavender system had a database of 37,000 Palestinian men with suspected links to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

Lavender assigns a numerical score, from one to a hundred, to every man in Gaza, based mainly on cellphone and social media data, and automatically adds those with high scores to its kill list of suspected militants. Israel uses another automated system, known as “Where’s Daddy?”, to call in airstrikes to kill these men and their families in their homes.

The report is based on interviews with six Israeli intelligence officers who have worked with these systems. As one of the officers explained to +972, by adding a name from a Lavender-generated list to the Where’s Daddy home tracking system, he can place the man’s home under constant drone surveillance, and an airstrike will be launched once he comes home.

The officers said the “collateral” killing of the men’s extended families was of little consequence to Israel. “Let’s say you calculate [that there is one] Hamas [operative] plus 10 [civilians in the house],” the officer said. “Usually, these 10 will be women and children. So absurdly, it turns out that most of the people you killed were women and children.”

The officers explained that the decision to target thousands of these men in their homes is just a question of expediency. It is simply easier to wait for them to come home to the address on file in the system, and then bomb that house or apartment building, than to search for them in the chaos of the war-torn Gaza Strip.

The officers who spoke to 972+ explained that in previous Israeli massacres in Gaza, they could not generate targets quickly enough to satisfy their political and military bosses, and so these AI systems were designed to solve that problem for them. The speed with which Lavender can generate new targets only gives its human minders an average of 20 seconds to review and rubber-stamp each name, even though they know from tests of the Lavender system that at least 10% of the men chosen for assassination and familicide have only an insignificant or a mistaken connection with Hamas or PIJ.

The Lavender AI system is a new weapon, developed by Israel. But the kind of kill lists that it generates have a long pedigree in U.S. wars, occupations and CIA regime change operations. Since the birth of the CIA after the Second World War, the technology used to create kill lists has evolved from the CIA’s earliest coups in Iran and Guatemala, to Indonesia and the Phoenix program in Vietnam in the 1960s, to Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s and to the U.S. occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Just as U.S. weapons development aims to be at the cutting edge, or the killing edge, of new technology, the CIA and U.S. military intelligence have always tried to use the latest data processing technology to identify and kill their enemies.

The CIA learned some of these methods from German intelligence officers captured at the end of the Second World War. Many of the names on Nazi kill lists were generated by an intelligence unit called Fremde Heere Ost (Foreign Armies East), under the command of Major General Reinhard Gehlen, Germany’s spy chief on the eastern front(see David Talbot, The Devil’s Chessboard, p. 268).

Gehlen and the FHO had no computers, but they did have access to four million Soviet POWs from all over the USSR, and no compunction about torturing them to learn the names of Jews and communist officials in their hometowns to compile kill lists for the Gestapo and Einsatzgruppen.

After the war, like the 1,600 German scientists spirited out of Germany in Operation Paperclip, the United States flew Gehlen and his senior staff to Fort Hunt in Virginia. They were welcomed by Allen Dulles, soon to be the first and still the longest-serving director of the CIA. Dulles sent them back to Pullach in occupied Germany to resume their anti-Soviet operations as CIA agents. The Gehlen Organization formed the nucleus of what became the BND, the new West German intelligence service, with Reinhard Gehlen as its director until he retired in 1968.

After a CIA coup removed Iran’s popular, democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953, a CIA team led by U.S. Major General Norman Schwarzkopf trained a new intelligence service, known as SAVAK, in the use of kill lists and torture. SAVAK used these skills to purge Iran’s government and military of suspected communists and later to hunt down anyone who dared to oppose the Shah.

By 1975, Amnesty International estimated that Iran was holding between 25,000 and 100,000 political prisoners, and had “the highest rate of death penalties in the world, no valid system of civilian courts and a history of torture that is beyond belief.”

In Guatemala, a CIA coup in 1954 replaced the democratic government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzman with a brutal dictatorship. As resistance grew in the 1960s, U.S. special forces joined the Guatemalan army in a scorched earth campaign in Zacapa, which killed 15,000 people to defeat a few hundred armed rebels. Meanwhile, CIA-trained urban death squads abducted, tortured and killed PGT (Guatemalan Labor Party) members in Guatemala City, notably 28 prominent labor leaders who were abducted and disappeared in March 1966.

Once this first wave of resistance was suppressed, the CIA set up a new telecommunications center and intelligence agency, based in the presidential palace. It compiled a database of “subversives” across the country that included leaders of farming co-ops and labor, student and indigenous activists, to provide ever-growing lists for the death squads. The resulting civil war became a genocide against indigenous people in Ixil and the western highlands that killed or disappeared at least 200,000 people.

This pattern was repeated across the world, wherever popular, progressive leaders offered hope to their people in ways that challenged U.S. interests. As historian Gabriel Kolko wrote in 1988, “The irony of U.S. policy in the Third World is that, while it has always justified its larger objectives and efforts in the name of anticommunism, its own goals have made it unable to tolerate change from any quarter that impinged significantly on its own interests.”

When General Suharto seized power in Indonesia in 1965, the U.S. Embassy compiled a list of 5,000 communists for his death squads to hunt down and kill. The CIA estimated that they eventually killed 250,000 people, while other estimates run as high as a million.

Twenty-five years later, journalist Kathy Kadane investigated the U.S. role in the massacre in Indonesia, and spoke to Robert Martens, the political officer who led the State-CIA team that compiled the kill list. “It really was a big help to the army,” Martens told Kadane. “They probably killed a lot of people, and I probably have a lot of blood on my hands. But that’s not all bad – there’s a time when you have to strike hard at a decisive moment.”

Kathy Kadane also spoke to former CIA director William Colby, who was the head of the CIA’s Far East division in the 1960s. Colby compared the U.S. role in Indonesia to the Phoenix Program in Vietnam, which was launched two years later, claiming that they were both successful programs to identify and eliminate the organizational structure of America’s communist enemies.

The Phoenix program was designed to uncover and dismantle the National Liberation Front’s (NLF) shadow government across South Vietnam. Phoenix’s Combined Intelligence Center in Saigon fed thousands of names into an IBM 1401 computer, along with their locations and their alleged roles in the NLF. The CIA credited the Phoenix program with killing 26,369 NLF officials, while another 55,000 were imprisoned or persuaded to defect. Seymour Hersh reviewed South Vietnamese government documents that put the death toll at 41,000.

How many of the dead were correctly identified as NLF officials may be impossible to know, but Americans who took part in Phoenix operations reported killing the wrong people in many cases. Navy SEAL Elton Manzione told author Douglas Valentine (The Phoenix Program) how he killed two young girls in a night raid on a village, and then sat down on a stack of ammunition crates with a hand grenade and an M-16, threatening to blow himself up, until he got a ticket home.

“The whole aura of the Vietnam War was influenced by what went on in the “hunter-killer” teams of Phoenix, Delta, etc,” Manzione told Valentine. “That was the point at which many of us realized we were no longer the good guys in the white hats defending freedom – that we were assassins, pure and simple. That disillusionment carried over to all other aspects of the war and was eventually responsible for it becoming America’s most unpopular war.”

Even as the U.S. defeat in Vietnam and the “war fatigue” in the United States led to a more peaceful next decade, the CIA continued to engineer and support coups around the world, and to provide post-coup governments with increasingly computerized kill lists to consolidate their rule.

After supporting General Pinochet’s coup in Chile in 1973, the CIA played a central role in Operation Condor, an alliance between right-wing military governments in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia, to hunt down tens of thousands of their and each other’s political opponents and dissidents, killing and disappearing at least 60,000 people.

The CIA’s role in Operation Condor is still shrouded in secrecy, but Patrice McSherry, a political scientist at Long Island University, has investigated the U.S. role and concluded, “Operation Condor also had the covert support of the US government. Washington provided Condor with military intelligence and training, financial assistance, advanced computers, sophisticated tracking technology, and access to the continental telecommunications system housed in the Panama Canal Zone.”

McSherry’s research revealed how the CIA supported the intelligence services of the Condor states with computerized links, a telex system, and purpose-built encoding and decoding machines made by the CIA Logistics Department. As she wrote in her book, Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America:

“The Condor system’s secure communications system, Condortel… allowed Condor operations centers in member countries to communicate with one another and with the parent station in a U.S. facility in the Panama Canal Zone. This link to the U.S. military-intelligence complex in Panama is a key piece of evidence regarding secret U.S. sponsorship of Condor…”

Operation Condor ultimately failed, but the U.S. provided similar support and training to right-wing governments in Colombia and Central America throughout the 1980s in what senior military officers have called a “quiet, disguised, media-free approach” to repression and kill lists.

The U.S. School of the Americas (SOA) trained thousands of Latin American officers in the use of torture and death squads, as Major Joseph Blair, the SOA’s former chief of instruction described to John Pilger for his film, The War You Don’t See:

“The doctrine that was taught was that, if you want information, you use physical abuse, false imprisonment, threats to family members, and killing. If you can’t get the information you want, if you can’t get the person to shut up or stop what they’re doing, you assassinate them – and you assassinate them with one of your death squads.”

When the same methods were transferred to the U.S. hostile military occupation of Iraq after 2003, Newsweek headlined it “The Salvador Option.” A U.S. officer explained to Newsweek that U.S. and Iraqi death squads were targeting Iraqi civilians as well as resistance fighters. “The Sunni population is paying no price for the support it is giving to the terrorists,” he said. “From their point of view, it is cost-free. We have to change that equation.”

The United States sent two veterans of its dirty wars in Latin America to Iraq to play key roles in that campaign. Colonel James Steele led the U.S. Military Advisor Group in El Salvador from 1984 to 1986, training and supervising Salvadoran forces who killed tens of thousands of civilians. He was also deeply involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, narrowly escaping a prison sentence for his role supervising shipments from Ilopango air base in El Salvador to the U.S.-backed Contras in Honduras and Nicaragua.

In Iraq, Steele oversaw the training of the Interior Ministry’s Special Police Commandos – rebranded as “National” and later “Federal” Police after the discovery of their al-Jadiriyah torture center and other atrocities.

Bayan al-Jabr, a commander in the Iranian-trained Badr Brigade militia, was appointed Interior Minister in 2005, and Badr militiamen were integrated into the Wolf Brigade death squad and other Special Police units. Jabr’s chief adviser was Steven Casteel, the former intelligence chief for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in Latin America.

The Interior Ministry death squads waged a dirty war in Baghdad and other cities, filling the Baghdad morgue with up to 1,800 corpses per month, while Casteel fed the western media absurd cover stories, such as that the death squads were all “insurgents” in stolen police uniforms.

Meanwhile U.S. special operations forces conducted “kill-or-capture” night raids in search of Resistance leaders. General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of Joint Special Operations Command from 2003-2008, oversaw the development of a database system, used in Iraq and Afghanistan, that compiled cellphone numbers mined from captured cellphones to generate an ever-expanding target list for night raids and air strikes.

The targeting of cellphones instead of actual people enabled the automation of the targeting system, and explicitly excluded using human intelligence to confirm identities. Two senior U.S. commanders told the Washington Post that only half the night raids attacked the right house or person.

In Afghanistan, President Obama put McChrystal in charge of U.S. and NATO forces in 2009, and his cellphone-based “social network analysis” enabled an exponential increase in night raids, from 20 raids per month in May 2009 to up to 40 per night by April 2011.

As with the Lavender system in Gaza, this huge increase in targets was achieved by taking a system originally designed to identify and track a small number of senior enemy commanders and applying it to anyone suspected of having links with the Taliban, based on their cellphone data.

This led to the capture of an endless flood of innocent civilians, so that most civilian detainees had to be quickly released to make room for new ones. The increased killing of innocent civilians in night raids and airstrikes fueled already fierce resistance to the U.S. and NATO occupation and ultimately led to its defeat.

President Obama’s drone campaign to kill suspected enemies in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia was just as indiscriminate, with reports suggesting that 90% of the people it killed in Pakistan were innocent civilians.

And yet Obama and his national security team kept meeting in the White House every “Terror Tuesday” to select who the drones would target that week, using an Orwellian, computerized “disposition matrix” to provide technological cover for their life and death decisions.

Looking at this evolution of ever-more automated systems for killing and capturing enemies, we can see how, as the information technology used has advanced from telexes to cellphones and from early IBM computers to artificial intelligence, the human intelligence and sensibility that could spot mistakes, prioritize human life and prevent the killing of innocent civilians has been progressively marginalized and excluded, making these operations more brutal and horrifying than ever.

Nicolas has at least two good friends who survived the dirty wars in Latin America because someone who worked in the police or military got word to them that their names were on a death list, one in Argentina, the other in Guatemala. If their fates had been decided by an AI machine like Lavender, they would both be long dead.

As with supposed advances in other types of weapons technology, like drones and “precision” bombs and missiles, innovations that claim to make targeting more precise and eliminate human error have instead led to the automated mass murder of innocent people, especially women and children, bringing us full circle from one holocaust to the next.

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies are the authors of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, published by OR Books in November 2022.

Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and the author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.

Death toll from 4 days of rains rises to 63 in Pakistan with more rain on the forecast

RIAZ KHAN
Updated Wed, April 17, 2024



A motorcyclist and car drivers drive through a flooded road caused by heavy rain in Peshawar, Pakistan, Monday, April 15, 2024. Lightening and heavy rains killed dozens of people, mostly farmers, across Pakistan in the past three days, officials said Monday, as authorities declared a state of emergency in the country's southwest following an overnight rainfall to avoid any further casualties and damages.

 (AP Photo/Muhammad Sajjad)


PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Lightning and heavy rains led to 14 deaths in Pakistan, officials said Wednesday, bringing the death toll from four days of extreme weather to at least 63, as the heaviest downpour in decades flooded villages on the country's southwestern coast. Flash floods have also killed dozens of people in neighboring Afghanistan.

In Pakistan, most of the deaths were reported from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, in the country's northwest. Collapsing buildings have killed 32 people, including 15 children and five women, said Khursheed Anwar, a spokesman for the Disaster Management Authority. Dozens more were also injured in the region, where 1,370 houses were damaged, Anwar said.

The eastern province of Punjab has reported 21 lighting- and collapse-related deaths, while Baluchistan, in the country's southwest, reported 10 dead as authorities declared a state of emergency following flash floods.


On Wednesday, Baluchistan was bracing for more rains amid ongoing rescue and relief operations, as flash floods inundated villages near the coastal city of Gwadar.

Heavy rains also came down on the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. Authorities said a new spell of heavy rain is set to hit many areas, including the capital Karachi.

Pakistan is seeing heavier rain in April due to climate change, said Zaheer Ahmed Babar, a senior official at the Pakistan Meteorological Department.

“This month, so far there has been 353% more rainfall than normal in Baluchistan," Babar told The Associated Press. “Overall, rainfall has been 99% higher than the average across Pakistan, and it shows climate change has already happened in our country.”

Babar said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province witnessed 90% more rain than usual in April, although rainfall in other parts of the country has remained relatively normal. It has been the wettest April in the past 30 years.

In 2022, downpours swelled rivers and at one point flooded a third of Pakistan, killing 1,739 people. The floods also caused $30 billion in damages, from which Pakistan is still trying to rebuild. Baluchistan saw rainfall at 590% above average that year, while Karachi saw 726% more rainfall than usual.

Meanwhile, the death toll in neighboring Afghanistan rose to 70 after 37 more people died from various rain and flash flooding incidents in recent days, according to Abdullah Janan Saiq, the Taliban’s spokesperson for the State Ministry for Natural Disaster Management.

Flash floods have also damaged 2,000 homes, three mosques, four schools and affected thousands of people who will need humanitarian assistance, he said. Floods also damaged agriculture land and 2,500 animals died from the deluges, Saiq said.

___

Associated Press writers Rahim Faiez in Islamabad and Abdul Sattar in Quetta, Pakistan contributed for this story.

Pakistan: Lightning and unusually heavy rain kill dozens

Kelly Ng - BBC News
Tue, April 16, 2024

With more rain expected in the coming days, Pakistani authorities have also warned of landslides and flash floods [EPA]

At least 39 people have been killed in Pakistan after days of unusually heavy rains battered the country's southwest.

Some of those killed were farmers struck by lightning while harvesting wheat, authorities said.

Images online show swathes of farmland engulfed by rainwater. Flash floods have also disrupted power supplies and transportation networks.

Pakistan has experienced an increase in extreme weather events, as it grapples with the impacts of climate change.

In 2022, parts of the country were completely submerged by unprecedented flooding, killing more than 1,700 people and injuring thousands. Millions were left homeless and lacked clean drinking water for months after.

Some of the areas affected by the 2022 floods, including Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, are being impacted again by the recent storms.

With more rain expected in the coming days, Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority has also warned of landslides and flash floods.

Pakistan floods: 'It's like fighting a war with no end'


Pakistan floods 'likely' made worse by warming

Pakistan's most populated province Punjab has suffered the highest death toll so far, with 21 people killed by lightning between Friday and Sunday, AFP news agency reported.

At least eight were killed in the westernmost Balochistan province according to AFP, where authorities have declared a state of emergency. Schools in the province were ordered to shut on Monday and Tuesday.

Extensive areas of Pasni, a Baloch coastal town, have been covered by rainwater.

"Pasni looks like a big lake at the moment as flash floods entered the human settlements and main commercial areas," Noor Ahmed Kalmati, chairman of the town's municipal committee, told Pakistan newspaper Dawn.

Heavy flooding has also been reported in neighbouring Afghanistan. At least 33 people have been killed and hundreds of homes damaged or destroyed, Afghan authorities said on Sunday.

Scientists have said that global warming is likely to have played a role in the devastating floods that hit Pakistan in 2022. Pakistan is also ranked as the fifth most vulnerable country to climate change, according to the UN's Global Climate Risk Index.


More than 100 killed across Pakistan and Afghanistan as flash floods and heavy rains sweep the region

Sophia Saifi, Asim Khan, Masoud Popalzai, Irene Nasser and Kathleen Magramo, 

CNN

Wed, April 17, 2024 

Unseasonal rainfall has lashed Pakistan and Afghanistan over the past few days, killing more than 100 people across the neighboring countries, authorities said.

In Afghanistan, heavy rain and floods in 23 provinces killed 66 people and wounded 36 others, according to preliminary reports from Mullah Janan Sayeq, a spokesman for the Ministry of Disaster Management.

Sayeq added that 600 animals died, and more than 1,200 houses have either been fully or partially destroyed in the deluge.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Afghanistan said Tuesday that the heavy rains and floods have affected more than 1,200 families and damaged almost 1,000 houses, according to a statement on X.

More than 63,000 acres of land has been damaged, and the statement added that the UN and its partners are “assessing the impact and related needs and providing assistance.”

People wade through a street flooded by heavy rain in Peshawar, Pakistan on April 15, 2024. - Muhammad Sajjad/AP

Afghanistan has been reeling from years of conflict and natural disasters – last year alone, more than 150 people died from the harsh winter cold wave followed by dozens of deaths due to flash floods. Last October, a deadly 6.3 magnitude earthquake rattled its western Herat province, killing over 2,000 people.

The impoverished country has plunged deeper into an economic and humanitarian crisis ever since the Taliban took over in August 2021, and getting aid into the country has been difficult.

Several major foreign aid groups suspended their operations in the country late 2022 when the hardline Islamist group ordered all local and international non-governmental organizations to stop their female employees from working there.

The ongoing severe rain is also wreaking havoc in bordering Pakistan, where 32 people have died in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to a report released by the provincial disaster management authority.

Houses submerged after heavy rains flood Nowshera district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on April 16, 2024. - Abdul Majeed/AFP/Getty Images

Eight more people died in the southwestern province of Balochistan, according to provincial authorities.

Nearly 170 houses were completely destroyed and more than 1,250 partially damaged, local authorities said, while the country’s meteorological office warned of more rainfall in Balochistan on Wednesday, extending to the rest of Pakistan on Thursday.

The heavy downpours are unusual for the region at this time of the year, as Pakistan typically experiences the monsoon season from June through September.

Pakistan ranks as one of the most climate-vulnerable nations in the world even though it is responsible for less than 1% of the world’s plant-warming emissions.

The South Asian country has faced dramatic climate conditions, including record heatwaves and catastrophic floods that submerged one-third of the country in 2022 – as the climate crisis exacerbates extreme weather events.




Heavy rains, lightning kill 50 people across Pakistan

DPA
Tue, April 16, 2024 

Volunteers from the Alkhidmat Foundation assist people after torrential rain, thunderstorms, and lightning caused havoc nationwide. -/PPI via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa


Pakistani authorities have put rescue services on high alert after heavy rains, thunderstorms and lightning wrought havoc across the country.

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has asked emergency services to be vigilant as more severe weather moves in.

The death toll from the heavy rains over the past four days has risen to 50, according to officials from provincial wings of the authority on Tuesday.

At least 21 people, including seven children, were killed when lightning struck in central Punjab province.

Another 21 people were killed in the north-western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. At least eight perished in the southern province of Balochistan.

The weather has put the harvesting of wheat crops on hold in Punjab. It is feared that the upcoming spell of rains starting from Thursday will not only further delay the harvesting but will also do damage to the crop.

Heavy rainfalls, thunderstorms and flooding is unusual in the South Asian region, one of the most populous in the world, outside of the monsoon season between July and September.

Pakistan is responsible for less than 1% of global carbon emissions, but is among the top 10 most climate-vulnerable nations.

More than 2,000 people were killed by catastrophic floods and subsequent outbreak of diseases in Pakistan in 2022 when a third of the country was submerged, affecting 33 million people.

 

The Dangerous Reality of China's Megaprojects in Pakistan

CPEC-built Kas-Pul Bridge, Battagram (IamAnisurrahman / CC BY SA 4.0)

PUBLISHED APR 7, 2024 2:45 PM BY THE LOWY INTERPRETER

 

 

[By Syed Fazl-e-Haider]

The killing of five Chinese engineers in a 26 March suicide attack in Pakistan’s northwest has renewed concerns about the safety and security of Chinese personnel and projects in the South Asian country. The attack – in which an explosives-laden vehicle rammed into a bus transporting staff from Islamabad to the Dasu dam project in Shangla district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province – sent a ripple of anxiety all the way to Beijing.

Yet despite China’s call for a “thorough investigation” into the incident, Islamabad and Beijing remain optimistic about the US$62 billion China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian reportedly said, “Our two countries are all-weather strategic cooperative partners. Our iron-clad friendship is deeply rooted in the two peoples. No attempt to sabotage China–Pakistan cooperation will ever succeed.”

However, the ministry’s statement did little to allay fears among Chinese nationals working on dam projects in Pakistan’s northwest. Chinese companies suspended civil works on both the Dasu and Diamer–Bhasha dam projects in the aftermath of the suicide attack. Almost a thousand Chinese engineers working on both projects have stopped work.

Just two days after the bombing, a Chinese company suspended civil works at the Tarbela 5th Extension Hydropower Project and laid off more than 2,000 workers due to “security reasons”. In 2021, Pakistani authorities had awarded a US$355 million contract to Power Construction Corporation of China Ltd for civil works on the project. The 1,530MW Tarbela dam was scheduled to start power production before 2026. 

Hardly a week before the suicide attack, insurgents targeted Chinese interests in the country’s southwest by storming the Gwadar Port Authority (GPA) complex and Turbat naval base near China-run Gwadar Port, which is a key component of the CPEC, in southwestern Balochistan province. Security forces thwarted both attacks and killed the insurgents. The assaults were claimed by the outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), a separatist group fighting for an independent Balochistan against the state of Pakistan. Operationalised in 2017, Turbat naval base was built to provide a vital link for air transportation to support the CPEC.

“The audacious attacks on the GPA complex and Turbat naval base reflect the enhanced operational capacity of the BLA to storm the heavily guarded areas in Balochistan,” Jan Muhammed Baloch, a political analyst and researcher, told this author. “By attacking the GPA complex – the highly sensitive area in Pakistan’s Belt and Road hub of Gwadar – the group has sent a message of ‘vulnerability’ to China having ambitious plans for transport of Middle Eastern oil through Gwadar Port,” said Baloch.

The BLA, which has conducted numerous attacks on Chinese citizens in Pakistan, has demanded that China close down the CPEC and quit Balochistan. The group repeatedly warned Beijing against signing more CPEC deals with Islamabad.

Most insurgent attacks in Pakistan’s northwest and southwest are carried out by the proscribed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) or Pakistani Taliban, along with the BLA in the southwest. In late 2022, Baloch separatist groups including the BLA and TTP declared that they had joined ranks against the state of Pakistan.

These three high-profile attacks on Chinese interests have dealt a severe blow to the myth of foolproof security for Chinese personnel and projects in Pakistan. The attacks further aggravate security concerns for Beijing, which is the largest foreign investor in the country. Pakistan blamed “foreign elements” for the terrorist attacks on Chinese citizens, which it says are aimed at harming the China–Pakistan relationship and damaging the CPEC.

Pakistan accuses its neighbours, Iran and Afghanistan, of harbouring the anti-Pakistan militant outfits. There is, however, a background to the recent attacks. On 18 March, Pakistan conducted air strikes inside Afghanistan to target the sanctuaries of the TTP. In January, Pakistan carried out air strikes inside Iran targeting the hideouts of the BLA and other Baloch rebel groups. The BLA vowed to avenge the killing of its members in the air strike, as did the Taliban. Pakistan has been under attack by both the TTP and BLA since.

Meanwhile, the CPEC has been proceeding at snail’s pace, not just due to security threats. A combination of political instability, local stakeholder issues, the Covid-19 pandemic, and technical challenges have contributed to the low implementation rate of China’s megaprojects in Southeast Asia. CPEC projects face similar issues, but security is the number one challenge in Pakistan. Unlike Southeast Asian countries, Pakistan has been reeling from separatist insurgency and Islamist militancy for two decades.

Syed Fazl-e-Haider is a contributing analyst at the South Asia desk of Wikistrat. He is a freelance columnist and the author of several books, including The Economic Development of Balochistan.

This article appears courtesy of The Lowy Interpreter and may be found in its original form here. 

Top image: CPEC-built Kas-Pul Bridge, Battagram (IamAnisurrahman / CC BY SA 4.0)

The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.

IS ‘ISIS’ STILL A GLOBAL THREAT?

Last July’s attack in Bajaur, January’s attack in Iran and the recent one in Moscow show that ability of the group’s franchises to stage spectacular acts of destruction worldwide remains.

Ejaz Haider Published April 7, 2024

LONG READ 

“‘Listen up — there’s no war that will end all wars,’ Crow tells me. ‘War breeds war. Lapping up the blood shed by violence, feeding on wounded flesh. War is a perfect, self-contained being. You need to know that.’“ — Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

PROLOGUE

On April 23, 2015, Colonel Gulmurod Khalimov, head of Tajikistan’s Interior Ministry’s elite special forces unit (a counter-terrorism unit), failed to show up for a meeting with the interior minister.

No one had seen him for three days. His phone was switched off. His wife was contacted. She claimed that, for some time, Khalimov had been living with his second wife. When his second wife was contacted, she said that Khalimov had told her he was going off on a mission for a few days. She told the officials that was all she knew.

The news quickly spread. The head of the special forces, a high-ranking officer, a man close to President Emomali Rahmon’s family, had disappeared. Rumours abounded. Had Khalimov joined the political opposition and taken refuge in the mountains? Had he fallen out with Rahmon’s son and been eliminated. Yes, that’s possible in Tajikistan, a family autocracy that is highly repressive.

Independent journalists began to investigate. Abdusalim Khalimov, the father of Gulmurod, living in their village in the Varzob district, said he had no idea where his son was, saying, “It’s been a month. I don’t know what happened. A soldier came and asked me questions. I don’t know anything about it.” Weeks went by without any news. Finally, the news broke.

On May 28, Central Asia TV network revealed that Khalimov had been found. He was in Syria, with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The channel ran a video clip by Khalimov. The message was recorded in Russian and addressed all Muslims in Russia and the former Soviet republics. “Brothers are waiting to enter Tajikistan and Russia and establish shariah,” the message said.

Many wrote off the threat from the so-called ‘Islamic State’ after its comprehensive defeats in Iraq and Syria. But as last July’s attack in Bajaur, January’s attack in Iran and the recent terror attack in Moscow show, the ability of the group’s franchises to stage spectacular acts of destruction worldwide remains. What is the nature of this beast and should we be worried?

Later reports indicated that Khalimov had fled with 10 others to Turkey via Russia and then entered Syria from Turkey. Tajik authorities refused to comment on Khalimov’s desertion. Arkady Dubnov, a Russian expert on Central Asia with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Khalimov’s video was authentic.

On September 8, 2017, a little over two years after Khalimov joined ISIS, Russian channels reported that he had been killed in an airstrike near Deir ez Zour. By then, Khalimov had risen rapidly through the ISIS ranks and had become the group’s minister for war. As a former officer, he had been trained both by Russia’s elite Spetsnaz and, later, by the American military contractor company, the infamous Blackwater.

Khalimov’s death has never been confirmed by Tajikistan. The country’s most wanted list still contains Khalimov’s name and photograph. During his absence from Tajikistan, two of his brothers, a nephew and a neighbour were killed by Tajik security forces, some 30 kilometres from the Tajik-Afghan border. The security forces claimed that they were part of an ISIS cell and were planning to cross over into Afghanistan. Khalimov’s elder son from his first wife was also arrested on terrorism charges and later killed during a prison riot. He was 20.

How is ISIS relevant anymore, especially after being evicted from the territories it once controlled in Syria and Iraq? This question can be answered depending on what lens one is using and what is considered as constituting an ISIS threat.

The core group’s military capability to capture territory has been badly dented in Syria and Iraq, at much human and material cost. It is unlikely that the group will regain a territorial foothold anywhere anytime soon. That’s good news.

The bad news is that, having lost its self-styled caliphate in Syria and Iraq, it has splintered into various franchises, its activities have been driven underground and it now relies on classic terrorist attacks to remain relevant in a competitive jihadi ecosystem. Those tactics and the so-called Islamic State’s (IS) continued quest to find ungoverned spaces within weak states mean, however, that the group and its ideology remain a threat.

The ISKP has carried out several targeted attacks against the JUI-F, such as the one pictured above, which took place in Mastung on September 14, 2023 | Pakistan Press International



MOSCOW ATTACK: WHY RUSSIA?

On March 22, 2024 a group of four or five terrorists attacked the Crocus City Hall outside Moscow. Armed with AK assault rifles, the attackers kept firing into the crowd, stopping only to reload. At some point, one or two of them also poured gasoline in one part of the building and set it on fire.

The attack, the rampage and the fire, which collapsed part of the hall, left 140 Muscovites dead and nearly 80 injured. While IS’s Middle East core took responsibility for the attack, US intelligence reports indicate the attack was planned and executed by the so-called Islamic State’s ‘Khorasan Province’ franchise, ISKP.

Russia has been in the jihadi crosshairs since Soviet times. The war in Afghanistan catalysed the break-up of the Soviet Union and also introduced the jihadi struggle into long-repressed Muslim Soviet Republics of the Soviet Union. The Central Asian Republics, especially Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, have been troubled by Islamist groups since the early ’90s.

Having lost its self-styled caliphate in Syria and Iraq, ISIS has splintered into various franchises, its activities have been driven underground and it now relies on classic terrorist attacks to remain relevant in a competitive jihadi ecosystem. Those tactics and the so-called Islamic State’s (IS) continued quest to find ungoverned spaces within weak states mean, however, that the group and its ideology remain a threat.

The area of the Ferghana Valley, shared by Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, has been particularly susceptible to such influences. That’s where Juma Namangani, a former Uzbek Soviet paratrooper who had fought in Afghanistan, created the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, along with Tahir Yaldashev. Namangani had also fought in Tajikistan’s civil war. He was killed in an airstrike in November 2001, during the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, while Yaldashev was killed in a US Predator drone strike in 2009 in Zhob, Balochistan.

The situation in the ‘90s was given a fillip by Russia’s two wars in Chechnya, especially the second Russo-Chechen War of 1999. The wars also exposed Russia to Chechen and Dagestani militant attacks. The Chechen insurgency itself split into nationalists and global jihadis. Chechen women, shahidkas (Black Widows), introduced suicide bombing, starting in the noughties. They staged many high-profile attacks, including eight of the 10 suicide bombings in the Russian capital.

Russia’s military and diplomatic help to Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria has also been a reason for reprisal attacks by IS. On September 6, 2022, an ISKP suicide bomber blew himself up outside the Russian embassy in Kabul. The attack killed six people, including two members of Russian embassy staff.

Russia has also taken a forward-leaning security posture since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, including through military presence in Tajikistan, where it also holds joint counter-terrorism and military exercises with Tajikistan.

The Syria war informs IS’s memory, especially the defeat and the group’s dislodging from the territory. IS attacks inside Iran are seen as revenge for Tehran and its proxies’ anti-ISIS role in Syria and Iraq. This explains the ISKP attack in January this year in Kerman, Iran, at the anniversary commemoration of Maj Gen Qasem Soleimani, who was instrumental in Iran’s operations in Syria and Iraq. The attack killed over 90 people and left over a hundred injured.

Prior to both attacks, the US had warned Iran and Russia of imminent extremist attacks. Russian President Vladimir Putin is reported to have dismissed the warning, accusing the US of sowing fear. Putin has since been pushing the line about Ukraine’s involvement in the attack, a charge that has been rejected by Kyiv.

In the meantime, Russian security agencies have also arrested four Tajik nationals. When produced before the court, they showed visible signs of torture. Many experts believe Russia may not have the right perpetrators of the attack.

WHY IS TAJIKISTAN VULNERABLE?

Radicalisation among some Muslim communities in Central Asia dates back to the early ’90s. With the break-up of the Soviet Union, nearly a century of repressed religious sentiment rose among societies that, in many cases, had remained traditional and backward.

The Afghanistan jihad also played a major role in galvanising the new Islamist spirit. The post-Soviet Central Asian Republics also failed to deliver democratic governance and economic progress, most having been captured by former communists, who converted party rule into dynastic rule.

The twin processes of radicalisation and repression are particularly acute in Tajikistan, the region’s poorest country. One report quoted the country’s president, Rahmon, as saying that, “In the last three years, 24 Tajiks have committed or planned terrorist attacks in 10 countries.” There are reasons for this radicalisation.

Immediately after independence, Tajikistan was plunged into a civil war (1992–1997), leaving nearly 100,000 dead. Rahmon has ruled the country since 1994 and, once he is gone, the presidential office will pass on to Rustam Emomoli, his son.

The social and economic situation in Tajikistan is the worst in Central Asia, with the country ranking 162 in the world by GDP per capita index, according to International Monetary Fund estimates. Nearly 70 percent of Tajiks live in rural areas and the communities practise child marriage and polygamy. Ethnic Russians, who comprised about 7.5 percent of the population in 1989, have mostly emigrated, with only about 30,000 remaining in Tajikistan. That has also brought down the female employment ratio. Female unemployment, in any case, is common in the country.

By most accounts, while poverty and inequality remain rampant, digitisation and digital networks have served to exacerbate the sense of injustice. It also exposes the population to extremist views.

The Rahmon family and the ruling clique of his lieutenants are fabulously rich, a sharp contrast to the state of the country’s economy. Politically, Rahmon has done everything to destroy all opposition, to the point where the people have no legal-constitutional means to fight excesses and injustices. Radicalisation, as expat Tajik experts point out, is the only path open to many.

As one report put it, “International terrorist groups have long looked on Tajikistan as a fertile recruiting ground. Media outlets affiliated with [ISKP] produce content in the Tajik language. They publish religious material and political tracts criticising Rahmon for being too close to Russia, for his authoritarianism, and for not being religious enough. [ISKP] also runs Tajik-language Telegram channels and TikTok accounts.”

Members of IS pictured following their surrender to the Afghan government on November 17, 2019: by 2019, the ISKP had begun to lose territory to the Afghan army and the Taliban — but the group has proved to be resilient and has been able to mount a number of operations inside Afghanistan since | AFP


DID ISIS END IN IRAQ AND SYRIA?

From roughly 2014 to 2017, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — also known as ISIL or Daesh — held about a third of the territory of Syria and 40 percent of Iraq’s. By December 2017, it had lost 95 percent of its territory, including its two biggest properties, Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, and the Northern Syrian city of Raqqa, its nominal capital.

Unlike Al Qaeda and its affiliated groups, ISIS did nothing to hide itself and its activities. Not only did it believe in capturing territory and establishing a caliphate, it presented its exploits to the world through social media messages and video clips. Nor did it hide its recruitment drive. Its tactics were grounded in the theories expounded in the book Management of Savagery by an author who called himself Abu Bakr Naji.

At one point, Naji writes: “The great ‘power’ and that which causes the enemy to reflect one thousand times [is] a result of the ‘powers’ of the groups, whether they are groups of ‘vexation’ or groups of administration in the regions of savagery. The tie of religious loyalty between all of these groups is embodied in a covenant written in blood. The most important clause (of this covenant) is: ‘Blood for blood and destruction for destruction.’ Attaining a great ‘power’ makes the enemy unable to oppose it.”

As should be clear, this passage explains how IS responds to any attack by treating it as an attack against a unified group and body, the unified body being IS itself, whose struggle must continue unceasingly against infidels, both Muslims (those who oppose its exegetical worldview) and non-Muslims. The text remains central to IS operations and continues to inform its exceptional brutality.

While multiple state and non-state actors managed to defeat ISIS in Syria and Iraq, after the final battle in Syria — fought in February 2019 at the town of Baghuz Fawqani near Deir ez Zaur, where Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces managed to dislodge ISIS fighters through a series of ground assaults supported by the US-led coalition — hundreds of ISIS fighters managed to flee the Iraq-Syria theatre. Experts believe many went underground and have spread out. Dozens of them are also said to have reached Afghanistan.

ISKP AND THE TALIBAN

Islamic State Khorasan Province is one of the most important branches of IS. Its reference to Khorasan comes from what, in Islamic eschatology, is called ‘The Hadith of Black Flag’ — a hadith that is much debated and equally controversial, both in its provenance and its interpretation.

ISKP’s formation was announced in January 2015 by the then-Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani. According to sources and reports at the time, the group was formed after months of negotiations between the IS leadership and terrorist factions in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s outlawed Taliban factions. Splinter factions of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were active in ISKP and its first leader, Hafiz Saeed Orakzai, was a former TTP commander.

At the time of its formation, the group was based in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar. It operated on multiple fronts: against the US-supported Afghan government’s coalition troops, against the Afghan Taliban and against Shia populations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Gradually, the ISKP spread out into other areas: Kunar, Herat, Samangan, Kunduz, Jawzjan and Kabul. Notably, it also attacked and killed scholars and clerics who it considered to be against its creed.

By 2019, ISKP had begun to lose territory to the Afghan army and the Taliban. The US-supported defunct Afghan government even claimed, in late 2019, of having decimated the group. A similar claim was made by the Afghan Taliban in 2020. But the group has proved to be resilient and, despite counter-terrorism operations by the Afghan Taliban since the US withdrawal, it has been able to mount a number of operations inside Afghanistan and also Pakistan.

Following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, and despite the Tehreek-i-Taliban Afghanistan (TTA) operations against the ISKP, the latter has continued to expand its activities. During this period, intelligence sources indicate that the ISKP has also begun to target Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, in terms of attacks and recruitment.

As one report put it, “Following rocket strikes on Uzbekistan in April 2022, ISKP’s Voice of Khorasan magazine capitalised on the momentum, threatening to smash Afghanistan’s northern borders ‘as witnessed by the world when the Islamic State broke down the borders between Iraq and Sham [Syria] while crushing the Sykes-Picot [Agreement] under our feet.’”

As part of its strategy, the ISKP also appeals to jihadi sentiments by presenting the TTA as a Pashtun nationalist movement rather than a religious-jihadi force. To this end, they refer to the TTA’s negotiations with the Americans and their diplomatic outreach to the US, Russia, China, the Central Asian republics and others, accusing the TTA of wanting to subordinate Afghanistan to the interests of foreign powers, instead of working towards establishing a caliphate.

It is no coincidence that most jihadi texts refer to the secret 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement that carved out the Ottoman Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) territories into British and French mandates (spheres of influence).

The TTA is aware of this propaganda approach and is also wary of this. For instance, in Pakistan’s talks with TTA leaders on the thorny issue of the TTP, TTA leaders have, on more than one occasion, expressed the fear that, if they were to press the TTP beyond a certain point, they (TTA) run the risk of driving TTP factions into ISKP’s arms.

This fear is not entirely unfounded, since the ISKP originally comprised many fighters from the TTP’s splinter factions. However, it could well be a ruse, because the rift between the TTP and the ISKP has also been deepening, especially since the return to power of the TTA.

The TTP had publicly condemned the ISKP suicide attack in Bajaur on July 30, 2023, which targeted a political rally by the Deobandi Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam party of Maulana Fazlur Rehman (JUI-F). In fact, to retain their own Islamist credentials and undermine the Pakistani state’s counter-terrorism operations against itself, the TTP has been trying to brand the ISKP as a group supported by Pakistani intelligence agencies, a charge that is both perfidious and utterly bogus.

At the same time, just like the TTA, the TTP also downplays the threat from the ISKP, partly to offset external pressure, but mostly to present the TTA as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, which effectively controls the territory of that country.

THE ‘ISLAMIC STATE’ STRATEGY

As the world’s primary attention has moved on to emerging interstate rivalries and conflicts, the problem of IS and other such groups — including criminal gangs like in Haiti and Nigeria — continues to simmer. For IS, the most important strategy, after having lost territory in Iraq and Syria, is to find opportunities for high profile attacks, including but not confined to, Western capitals.

The Moscow attack has to be seen in that light. This strategy not only allows IS to stay relevant, but also makes it a tough competitor for other non-state actors and groups. The changing world ecosystem helps it find spaces, especially ungoverned ones, where it can thrive and from where it can operate.

While the frequency of ISKP attacks inside Pakistan have come down, even as attacks by the TTP and Baloch terrorist groups have spiked, the ISKP threat has not gone away. The ISKP would, whenever a possibility arises, target security forces, civilians — especially Shia and non-Muslim Pakistanis — as well as religious scholars that it considers to be “heretical”.

GLOBAL CHALLENGES AND GEOPOLITICS

In his 2017 award-winning book The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost, military historian Cathal J Nolan writes, “The allure of battle would matter little had not the long wars it led to altered the course of world history in conflicts of prolonged destruction and suffering, in wars… that lasted many years or even many decades.”

Humans seek clarity. The desire for a decisive battle to end violence and achieve security — what the Germans called Entscheidungsschlacht — is therefore understandable. When dealing with complexity, we try to parse and find that one factor that can solve the puzzle for us.

On September 14, 2001, then-US President George W Bush signed off on America’s National Security Strategy, detailing the conduct of what was then called the ‘Global War on Terror’. While the strategy conceded that “the struggle against global terrorism is different from any other war in our history”, it nonetheless expressed the confidence that “progress will come through the persistent accumulation of successes.”

Since then, much has changed but has also remained unchanged. The ability of terrorist groups to target the US has diminished, but the periphery remains unstable. These groups have continued to spawn regional franchises that continue to keep states in West and Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Sahel destabilised.

The situation is exacerbated by civil wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Sudan etc. Other states, such as Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, remain weak for a number of reasons, providing ideal ecosystems for the resurgence of terrorist groups.

Four Strategic Challenges

The post-Cold War era and the American unipolar moment are over. A global competition is underway between the United States and China and, to a lesser extent, between Russia and the US. The Russo-Ukraine War will continue to keep Ukraine and, with it, Europe destabilised. The ongoing genocide in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territories is fast driving a wedge between America and what has come to be loosely described as the Global South.

Democracies, even in the developed world, are witnessing the rise of majoritarianism, along religious and ethno-racial faultlines. These developments, especially in regions with historical conflicts, are likely to spill over.

Emerging technologies, especially artificial intelligence and its military applications, present another challenge. So far, there are no international legal mechanisms to govern and regulate research and development in these technologies. Combined with the unintended consequences of what these technologies might entail, the world faces a number of security, legal and moral-ethical challenges and dilemmas.

Multiple reports by top scientists across the world have made it clear that states and societies face an impending climate disaster. This necessitates global cooperation which, given various factors, is hard to come by. Climate change would lead to water shortages, food insecurity, rise of communicable diseases and energy shortages. Conflicts will further increase the severity of the situation and result in disruptions of global supply chains and increases in international commodity prices.

This will result in a dispiriting cycle of geopolitics impacting these shared challenges and these challenges, in turn, impacting geopolitics negatively. These shared challenges are not marginal issues secondary to geopolitics. They are at the very core of national and international security and must be addressed with great urgency.

Unfortunately, we will have to tackle these challenges within a competitive international environment, where heightened geopolitical competition, nationalism and populism render this cooperation even more difficult and will require us to think and act in new ways.

The writer is a journalist interested in security and foreign policies. X: @ejazhaider

Published in Dawn, EOS, April 7th, 2024