KABUL ATTACKS AIMED AT ESTABLISHING US-TALIBAN NEXUS

The ISIS has claimed responsibility for the twin fidayeen strike at the Kabul airport on Thursday which has left more than 100 people dead and scores of others critically injured. It is evident that a turf war has broken out between terror organisations in West Asia with Afghanistan as the epicentre, and a possible reason for the ISIS to carry out this dastardly, but not unexpected attack, was to establish a nexus between the US and the Taliban. The BBC had reported a few days ago that the ISIS has described Taliban as a stooge of the United States. This was not startling given their proximity, which was in full public view when President Joe Biden, at one of his press briefings categorically stated, that any person carrying a US Passport would not be stopped by Taliban but allowed access into the Kabul Airport. He was so confident only because there must have been some agreement on this issue. It has been widely reported that the Americans while pulling out their troops from the war-torn country, left behind most sophisticated military hardware and over 75000 vehicles besides helicopters and aircrafts, which were now in possession of the Taliban.

The seemingly sloppy and ill-conceived withdrawal involved leaving bio-metrics data of thousands of Afghans, who helped the US in its 20-year war in Afghanistan, making them both vulnerable and easy targets. There is speculation that the Americans deliberately left state-of-the-art military equipment with the anticipation that it would be used by the Taliban against Iran, China, and countries which were once part of the erstwhile Soviet Union. The ISIS, Al Qaeda and a dozen other terror outfits that are active in the Middle East have been following the unfolding developments very closely. The Western Intelligence had a tip off that Kabul Airport where a large number of people had been gathering daily could be a possible target. From the standpoint of the ISIS when the entire international media attention was focused on the Kabul airport and the ongoing evacuation exercise, any strike there would help them get worldwide publicity.

This has been their modus operandi earlier as well. It would further help the ISIS publicly distance itself from the Taliban, which according to the narrative, widely being supported by the Western media, was an extension of other militant groups. The ISIS has used this gap in the security set up to send out a clear message to Islamist groups that it had nothing to do with Taliban, which was working at present as a proxy of the Western powers. Whether this belief is correct or far-fetched is something that needs to be tested over a period of time. The situation in Afghanistan is very grim and it is not only in Kabul but also on all borders that country shares with its neighbours. Thousands of Afghans have crowded the frontiers in an attempt to flee from the tyrannical rule of an organisation that is yet to have a unified command and which has a dismal track record. The country is in the hands of barbarians and it is the common people, particularly the women and children who are bearing the maximum brunt.

What is baffling is that the NATO allies of the US, have not asserted themselves in any manner, allowing Washington to carry forward its badly designed retreat from a war. More than 15 US soldiers died in the attack on Thursday and Biden has sworn to hunt down the perpetrators. America is geographically far away from Afghanistan but countries in the region, including India shall have to face repercussions, arising out of a major folly by a superpower. The Taliban takeover would only lead to more bloodshed and anarchy rather than restoring peace in the region. The Taliban, ISIS and all such organisations need to be condemned for their actions which are against humanity.