Muft Noor Wali Mehsud’s Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, which remains allied with Al Qaeda, has stepped up small scale operations against Pakistani security forces in both North and South Waziristan over the past several months.
The attack belies U.S. officials’ claims that the Taliban has not been fighting in Afghanistan’s cities.
This time, the Taliban denied a Department of Defense report that Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent cooperates with the Taliban by claiming AQIS isn’t inside the country.
Pakistan remains a “safe haven” for a host of regional terror groups, including the Afghan Taliban and its integral subgroup, the Al Qaeda linked Haqqani Network, according the the State Department’s newly released Country Reports on Terrorism 2019.
The Taliban’s denial of Al Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan means that one of the two groups are not telling the truth. Either Al Qaeda has crafted an elaborate scheme to pretend it fights in Afghanistan alongside the Taliban, or the Taliban is lying, and Al Qaeda has fought there for decades and remains to this day.
Over the past week, the Taliban has killed or wounded more than 420 Afghan security personnel during attacks across Afghanistan. This buries claims by Afghan officials who claimed the Taliban agreed to extend its Ei-ul-Fitr ceasefire.
the Taliban continues to make it clear that it won’t accept anything less than a return of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. In a recent video, it extols the virtues of jihad while it denounces “deviants … who who are trained in the poisonous deviant beliefs of atheism, communism, secularism, democracy, and other satanic western and disbelieving ideologies.”
The Taliban’s statement should raise deep concerns with U.S. officials about the group’s reliability to be an effective counterterrorism partner against Al Qaeda and other terror groups.
Pakistan continues to play its double game by supporting terror groups. Thousands of Pakistanis, including fighters from the Pakistan state-sponsored Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, as well as the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, continue to support the Taliban’s jihad against the Afghan government.
The Taliban’s two deputy emirs and the head of its political office lauded suicide bombers and other “martyrdom seekers” who are working to achieve the goal of the restoration of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
The U.S. continues to target high level Islamic State leaders in Syria despite President Trump’s claim that the group has been “defeated.” Iraq’s Counter-Terrorism Service said that the U.S. military killed Hajji Taysir, who oversees the “Research Department for ISIS’s chemical and biological weapons efforts in Syria.” His death has not been confirmed.
Mullah Haibatullah, the leader of the Afghan Taliban and its Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, again called for the establishment of an “Islamic government” and the imposition of the group’s harsh versions of sharia.
The Afghan military waited only 10 weeks to drop “active defense” and resume offensive operations against the Taliban. The Taliban has responded by hitting Afghan security forces with suicide attacks.
At least 27 Afghan soldiers were killed and nine more are missing during a Taliban attack on an Afghan National Army outposts in the eastern province of Laghman on May 10. Meanwhile, the U.S. military continues to call for the Taliban to reduce violence.
As the U.S. is relying on the Taliban to keep Afghanistan from being a haven for terrorists in the wake of an agreement between the two parties, the Taliban lauds Mullah Omar’s defense of Osama bin Laden after Al Qaeda’s attack on the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001.
Hezbollah operates closely in Iraq alongside Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to prop up and support Shia militias hostile to the U.S. and the West. Muhammad Kawtharani has played a key role in Hezbollah’s operations.
The Taliban again highlighted the Red Unit, the group’s special operations unit that spearheads its assaults throughout Afghanistan.
AFRICOM has stepped up its air campaign against Shabaab since the beginning of the year, targeting the group 33 times.
As U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calls for the Taliban to honor a non-existent commitment to “reduce violence,” the Taliban continues to train for war.
The district Yamgan in in Badakhshan has been under siege for several months before falling to the Taliban today.
The Taliban has taken credit for 17 attacks per day against Afghan security forces. Despite promises from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the Taliban would “destroy” Al Qaeda, the Taliban has not lifted a finger against the group.
Additionally, the group’s leader, Qais al Khazali, and his brother, Laith al Khazali, have been listed as Specially Designated Global Terrorists. Both Qais and Laith were in U.S. custody up until the withdrawal from Iraq in December 2011.
The deadly assault in Zabul takes place as U.S. military officials continue to ponder if the Taliban’s drumbeat of daily attacks is part of the group’s overall strategy or the efforts of a “splinter” cell.
The U.S. military wonders if a “splinter” Taliban groups is responsible for attacks that are occurring in nearly every Afghan province. Meanwhile, the Taliban is claiming the attacks in its own name.
The Taliban has launched attacks in 27 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces against Afghan security forces since it signed an agreement with the U.S. that ensures American troops withdraw from the country.
In a religious ruling, the Taliban said it “shall continue waging armed jihad” until it establishes the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan with its emir, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, in charge.
The agreement signed by the U.S. and the Taliban made no such stipulations that the Taliban must halt attacks on Afghan forces. Yet the U.S. military is surprised that the Taliban is striking Afghan forces.
U.S. Africa Command said it killed the Shabaab commander was “in charge of planning and directing terrorist operations” along the Kenyan border, including the raid on the Manda Bay Airfield. Three Americans were killed in that attack.
Taliban fighters are training in the open in a mountainous area that should be easily identified by the U.S. and Afghan militaries.
The kidnapping took place less than three months after the Taliban and the U.S. conducted a prisoner exchange that freed three senior Haqqani Network leaders and two America professors. The Haqqani Network is thought to be behind the latest kidnapping.