Islamic State Supporters Surface in Afghanistan

On October 20, Afghanistan's Ministry of Interior (MoI) announced that several individuals had been arrested for writing "Long Live ISIS [the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria]" on the walls of Kabul University in the capital and at some other locations and that investigations were underway (Bokhdi News Agency, October 20). A month earlier, officials in Ghazni province had reported the presence of groups of insurgents with Islamic State flags and uniforms in the province's Andar district. Ghazni's deputy governor, Muhammad Ahmadi, said that these groups had taken control of some roads and had searched travelers (Tolo News, September 21).

Although the extent of any nascent Islamic State influence in Afghanistan remains unclear, members of the group, including the leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, were present in Afghanistan in the late 1990s when al-Qaeda had training camps in various parts of the country. Sources close to Afghan officials have said that al-Baghdadi had traveled to Afghanistan along with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq until his death in 2006 (Tadbirkhabar.com, July 15).

These long-standing links between al-Qaeda and Afghanistan, dating back to Arab jihadists' involvement in fighting against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during 1980s, mean that the emergence of an Islamic State branch in Afghanistan cannot be dismissed. In addition, given that the Taliban and its affiliated groups such as the Haqqani Network, have adopted the most radical salafi-deobandi interpretations of Islam during the last decade - as evidenced by their widespread use of suicide attacks - it is indeed possible that some of these groups may swear allegiance to al-Baghdadi if Islamic State influence continues to spread in the country.

Already a video has been distributed through social media purporting to show a group of 20 Afghans announcing their loyalty and allegiance to al-Baghdadi, saying that their total group of 5,000 fighters will be the Afghan branch of the Islamic State organization (Shafaf.ir, October 19). However, while the Islamic State's online supporters have welcomed this announcement, their opponents - such as the Syria-based al-Nusra Front and Musa al-Ghanami, a prominent Saudi pro-jihadist preacher - have cast doubt on the video's claims. For instance, they question why only 20 of the purported 5,000 militants appeared in the video.

Regardless of the video's authenticity, these developments nonetheless give clear notice that the Islamic State organization's influence may be spreading to Afghanistan, including Kabul. While the emergence of potential Islamic State supporters in the country is unlikely to have any short-term implications, it raises questions about the longer-term trajectory of Afghanistan after the planned withdrawal over the bulk of international military forces from the country in the coming months. It also underlines that during the last few years the shift of Afghanistan's society towards increasingly conservative forms of Islam and away from the traditional Hanafi school of Islam, may be making the country even more receptive to radical forms of Islam in the years ahead.

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