Haqqani Network camouflaging as ISIS in Afghanistan, under ISI's direction: Report

Afghanistan, in the last few months, has been hit by major attacks carried out by the IS-KP (Islamic State - Khorasan Province) and has witnessed a gradual emergence of the outfit.

In one of the deadliest attacks in recent times, terrorists took over the main prison in Afghanistan's Jalalabad in Nangarhar province and what followed was a long clash between security forces and terrorists spanning 20 hours. After assessments, it was discovered that hundreds of terrorists managed to make a safe escape.

The IS-KP, a branch of ISIS operating in Afghanistan and seeking to establish a ‘Caliphate’ in what they call as Khorasan, claimed the responsibility of the jail break attack and came up with several propaganda material to boost itself and strengthen its claims. 

However, the claims of IS-KP were contested by the Afghan government, which has been claiming that the IS-KP is acting as a mask for Taliban and Haqqani Network (HQN) in Afghanistan.

Both the outfits are making the IS-KP conduct operations on their behalf so that they can deny involvement in operations that they don't want to associate their names with. Also, a large number of organisations have infiltrated into the IS-KP as well. The arguments  of the Afghanistan government are not at all unsubstantiated as there are several proofs to substantiate these.

After the attack, Afghanistan’s acting interior minister Masoud Andarabi claimed that head of ISIS-KP Shahab Almahajir is a member of the HQN and local leaders of these outfits were involved in the jailbreak attack. He also argued that the Taliban and HQN repeatedly cover attacks carried out by them and not suiting them politically, under the well of IS-KP.

Another substantive evidence is Pakistan’s dominance and HQN’s control over Jalalabad, which is very close to Pakistani border as Nangarhar shares border with Pakistan. Pakistan has been using Jalalabad as a satellite town to further  its geopolitical interests through terrorist outfits. It holds a significant control over the political economy of Jalalabad. Therefore, it is very unlikely that such a major terrorist operation could be carried out without Pakistan's knowledge and without the involvement of HQN - which is the most prominent outfit operating in the region.

 Another proof of Taliban-HQN-IS-KP smokescreen was evident in New York Times recent report in which it reported that the biometric profiling of detained IS-KP terrorists revealed that biometrics data of certain terrorists were already stored in the database, who were previously arrested as HQN members. It implies that the same terrorists keep hopping from one organisation to the other and in the latest trend, many of them have migrated to IS-KP from HQN.

"Why did the IS-KP claim responsibility of an attack carried out at HQN's behest?  There are multiple reasons to deconstruct this logic. The Taliban and HQN do not want to gain a bad name and deteriorate their images amongst the Afghan public. Hence, these organisations use IS-KP to carry out attacks that might lead to heavy casualties, including those of Afghan forces and civilians." said a counter terror operative to Zee News.

Secondly, claiming responsibility of the attack is a profitable deal for IS-KP as well. It has brought the outfit a great fame and publicity and it has managed to mark its strong presence in the region that was otherwise believed to be dominated by Taliban and HQN. Fame and display of muscle power are prerequisites for terrorist outfits to attract more cadres to defect and join them.

Thirdly and most importantly the connection of Pakistan  with Taliban and HQN, especially with the latter, is world known. Pakistan has been nurturing the outfit to fulfill its strategic and geopolitical interests in the  region and HQN has been directly operating under the direction of ISI handlers. Further,it's hard to believe that such an attack could be carried out without the support of security forces deployed in the prison. The HQN enjoys significant support within the Afghan security forces   and has maintained a strong relationship with them. The likelihood of involvement of Afghan security forces also firmly indicates HQN's involvement in the attack. The most probable reason why IS-KP was made to claim the responsibility of this specific jailbreak attack was to shield HQN, further ensuring that efforts of Pakistan to fulfill the 27 point FATF action plan don't go in vain.Emergence of HQN's name might put Pakistan in an embarrassing situation during the FATF review. Hence, it would not be an exaggeration to argue that playing safe, Pakistan has used IS-KP’s name to liberate Pak-sponsored terrorists and at the same time deny involvement.

Taliban/HQN and Al-Qaeda consider ISIS as their adversary and are in conflict with it in most of the parts of the world. In a lot of countries, especially in the MENA region, many terrorists have defected from Al-Qaeda and its affiliate organisations to ISIS and its affiliates. Both of these outfits have been publically questioning  each other's ‘Jihadi’ nature, kidnapping each other's cadres, and waging war on each other. Similarly, when ISIS entered into Afghanistan, it challenged the Taliban/HQN/AI- Qaeda hegemony. Taliban and ISIS have been earlier indulged into numerous conflicts in Afghanistan, with Al-Qaeda taking Taliban’s side. Even in Afghanistan, ISIS made inroads by recruiting active cadres from Al-Qaeda and Taliban/HQN. Nevertheless, the current scenario in Afghanistan is different and ever evolving. Here, the terrorist outfits are competing, yet complementing each other. The changing geopolitical situations with the US-Taliban deal on release of prisoners and reduction in violence going ahead, along with Pakistan's desperation to influence Afghanistan through Taliban, has compelled the outfits to adopt a more flexible approach.

The jailbreak attack was carried out by the HQN masquerading as IS-KP and has proved to be mutually beneficial for both the outfits along with HQN’s master-Pakistan. The volatile and ever-evolving nature of  Afghanistan has made situations more unpredictable . However, one thing is certain-The Taliban is definitely going to come into picture by gaining more share in Afghanistan’s governance . Consequently, Pakistan is going to use Taliban and HQN for furthering its geopolitical and economic agenda in the country.Hence, Afghanistan should brace itself to see more such camouflaged  attacks.