“We are ready to send Afghan soldiers to India for training,” said Taliban Defence Minister Mullah Yaqoob days ago. The interview, given to News18 made waves in both Indian and Pakistani media outlets. It was one of the first interviews given by a Taliban representative where the focus was not on women’s and human rights, topics widely used in the past months to cover with a convenient smokescreen other kinds of sensitive topics. Good, but it followed also the usual pattern all Taliban ministers are adopting while dealing with the rest of the world – lie, lie and again lie. If you repeat the same lie enough times, it will become true. “We will not allow Pakistan to use Afghanistan’s soil against India and we will not allow India to use Afghanistan’s soil against Pakistan,” said Yaqoob while responding to a question over the alleged presence of terror outfits on Afghan soil.
A Safe Haven for the Al Qaeda
All this when intelligence agencies worldwide have been warning that Taliban rule in Afghanistan is radically reshaping terrorist and militant groups in South Asia and around the world. In particular, intelligence and counter-terrorism officials say that despite the Taliban’s promises to sever ties with al Qaeda and oppose terror groups, such as the Islamic State’s Afghan affiliate, as codified in the Doha agreement with the US, there has been little evidence of progress.
A most recent UN report, based on intelligence from several countries, discovers practically hot water: the United Nations, apparently (and the US above all), has just found out what everybody else in the region and many analysts in the US perfectly knew but what American diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad and his party of negotiators conveniently forgot to notice. Al Qaeda still has a safe haven in Afghanistan, its freedom of action has grown since the Taliban’s rule, and its potential to launch long-distance attacks is increasing too.
300 Marriages Between Al Qaeda & Haqqanis
Not only this, but the UN suddenly woke up to the fact that the link (always denied, of course) between the Haqqani and al Qaeda has always been present. Taliban and al Qaeda members are fighting together, and the latter’s members have been given prominent positions in several Afghan provinces. Well-known exponents of the outfit are making numerous public appearances in the country, and a certain number of al Qaeda members are reported to be living in Kabul’s former diplomatic quarter, where they may have access to meetings at the Foreign Affairs Ministry. Also, after years, Ayman Al Zawahiri has re-emerged, recording eight video messages in a few months.
The cherry on top is that the UN suddenly found out that links between the Haqqanis and the al Qaeda have been strengthened over the years, with approximately three hundred marriages between family members of both terrorist outfits.
There is also some 'breaking' news about Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban Interior Minister and a revered New York Times 'editorialist' (recently interviewed by Christiane Amanpour with her head respectfully covered): according to both UK and US intelligence, Sirajuddin is an effective al Qaeda member, and not a generic member, but a relevant one of the top leadership.
Some Terrorists are More Terrorists than Others
The news is now worrying many Western security agencies. It seems as if a terrorist belonging to an organisation like the Haqqani Network is more or less acceptable, but a member of the al Qaeda is a totally different matter. Some terrorists are more terrorists than others, it seems. This could be the reason why nobody blinked an eye when last April, Amrullah Saleh, former Afghan Vice-President and former Director of the National Directorate of Security, said on Twitter:
“A small contingent of foreign troops have taken some of the inner sections of the Bagram airbase. I don't want to speculate on who they are & what functions they perform. It won't remain dark for long though. They train the Haqqani militias which is confirmed by multiple sources”.
In fact, according to Afghan sources, a few Chinese military aircraft landed in Bagram in October – along with elements belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the usual and inevitable members of the Pakistan ISI. The rumours, promptly denied at the time by both the Taliban and the Chinese, nevertheless continued until they found decisive confirmation in recent months.
Afghanistan Is a Disneyland for Terrorists
There have also been reports of the the Chinese training Haqqani militias in Miranshah, Peshawar and Quetta. They’re training, namely, the same Haqqani Network that has strong links with the al Qaeda and the ISIS-K – the same ISIS-K (also under the ISI's control) that seems to have been given the task of creating a front for the Taliban government by carrying out attacks and taking responsibility for them. This is in order to ‘lessen’ the al Qaeda threat and to clean up, at least in the eyes of the majority, the image of the ineffable Sirajuddin.
The repeated attacks by the ISIS-K serve to convey the message that the al Qaeda is no more a threat and the Taliban need to be armed and trained to fight their enemies, who are also the enemies of the international community. They are backed in this by China and Pakistan, the all-weather friends that have been lovingly nurturing the current Taliban leadership just in anticipation of this day. The Jaish-e-Mohammed, just to mention one, has been giving financial and material aid for years to the Taliban, and training and providing suicide bombers to the Haqqanis.
After the American withdrawal, the training camps of Nangahar province have been given to the Masood Azhar group, and, on the ISI's advice, the cadres of the group have been shifted to Afghanistan.
The UN and Western intelligence agencies should finally wake up to the fact that Afghanistan is already the Disneyland for terrorists they had feared it will become in a couple of years. They should act accordingly, targeting this time, with sanctions and more, not the puppets but the puppeteers.
(Francesca Marino is a journalist and a South Asia expert who has written ‘Apocalypse Pakistan’ with B Natale. Her latest book is ‘Balochistan — Bruised, Battered and Bloodied’. She tweets @francescam63. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author's own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for his reported views.)
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