Wednesday 18 February 2015

ISIS is battling the Taliban for legitimacy in Afghanistan, & they might just win.

Wiliyah Khurasan – ISIS In Afghanistan & Pakistan

By Lucas Theriault

The announcement of the Islamic State expanding into Afghanistan and Pakistan (AfPak) came from Islamic State Spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani shortly after a January 10th 2015 video from former Pakistan Taliban spokesman Shahidullah Shahid (who had already pledged allegiance in October). The video shows 10 commanders pledging allegiance to the Islamic State and announces that they have chosen Hafiz Saeed Khan. It was declared Wilayah Khurasan (The Khurasan Province) of the Islamic State.

By Lucas Theriault

There was a rivalry between Khan and current Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Maulana Fazlullah in 2014 when they competed for leadership. After losing out to Fazlullah and and Fazlullah brought a 10-month bloodbath upon the TTP after evoking the ire of the Pakistani government. With Fazlullah behind the shooting of Malala Yousafzai and the Peshawar School Massacre, Khan and other local commanders were likely turning to the Islamic State not only for support, but to distance themselves from the current TTP leadership.
Things became even more interesting after the TTP issued orders for the arrest of Mullah Rauf Khadim, the former deputy governor of the Islamic State in Khurasan (ISK). It was claimed that he was captured along with 45 of his supporters by Pahjwok Afghan News, but those reports were conflicted by even more recent reports that he was killed while on the run by a drone strike. The latter reports, similars reports by the Afghan spy agency that he had been killed in a certain area and by the Coalition that they had conducted a military operation in that area at the same time, may cast doubt on whether or not he was actually captured by the Taliban. That, however, is irrelevant as the orders themselves show a violent split between TTP and ISK.

Considering that violence between the TTP and ISK seems inevitable, there are three questions that are likely to be posed. The first is, obviously, who will win this power struggle. The second question posed is what this means in a global context. Finally, the question of what the future of the region will be is the culmination of all other analyses here.

Who will win this power struggle between ISIS and the Taliban?

There isn’t much research into how non-state actors wage war against each other like the TTP and ISK will. Even though TTP and ISK are both insurgencies themselves, their goal is to defeat another insurgency, so we’ll assume that they’ll be conducting counterinsurgency operations. The three pillars to success in counterinsurgency are security (military operations), political (winning hearts and minds), and economic (anything related to logistics and finance). These pillars, first and foremost, build on the foundation of information operations (IO). Whoever wins the IO front will have the upperhand in the rest of the pillars.

ISK already gains an advantage in IO because of their connection with the broader Islamic State. The Islamic State arguably has the best strategic communication in the entire world, including legitimate states. The TTP, on the other hand, woefully lacks the sophistication that the ISK can now call on.

Their military capabilities are fairly close. Both draw from the same pool of Pashtun soldiers and armaments that are already in the region. In fact, the ISK is mostly composed of TTP defectors. The US is starting to target ISK, but Pakistan has been brutalizing the TTP in response to terror attacks such as the one that killed over 100 school children. The US will likely arm the TTP against the ISK considering the White House statement that the Taliban is an insurgency while the Islamic State is a terrorist group and also considering that its standard US policy to covertly arm groups. They likely won’t be given much, though, due to fear of public outcry. On the other hand, the Islamic State is well-armed and can ship weapons to Afghanistan along the same routes they use traffic opium, found by the Russian Federal Drug Control.

The political victory goes handily to the ISK. Considering that Fazlullah and the TTP have lost popular support because of the heinous Peshawar massacre and internal support because of the ensuing hell that has been brought upon members, the ISK presents a less dangerous alternative. Even further, the legitimacy of the Caliphate in the eyes of extremists due to its relative effectiveness and reach give it even more of an edge.

Financially, both groups will still likely rely on Opium and outside donations. This will actually give ISK the upper hand because the the Islamic State will now prefer to buy from affiliated kingpins instead of those aligned with TTP. This will probably also cause many kingpins in the Hindu Kush to move away from TTP to ISK, taking their revenue with them.

Although ISK only maintains a small edge in some of the areas of counterinsurgency, they maintain a total domination and will likely win any confrontation. The question is what this means for the region and the rest of the world. According to intelligence firm MOSECON CEO Yan St-Pierre, the Islamic State could be attempting to expand for one of three reasons: increasing prominence and recruitment, allowing for the expansion of local conflict, and creating forward operating bases. A successful Islamic State Wilayah in the AfPak region could have significant value to its further operations politically, logistically, and militarily.

Politically, the Khurasan Wilayah will increase the perceived legitimacy of the Islamic State as an alternative to the current international system because it now has governates and reach from Libya all the way to Pakistan. The wide distance combined with the logistical capabilities which Conflict Armament Research notes as sophisticated in the 2014 “Islamic State Weapons in Iraq and Syria” report means that the Islamic State’s force projection rivals almost any nation on the planet save a very select handful handful. Militarily, this will better integrate the flow of fighters back and forth from Khurasan and the Islamic State’s core.

The final question is what will happen to the region. It’s likely that the Islamic State will continue giving some measure of support to ISK, mostly through a 2-way trade of heroin and weaponry. For the most part, though, the Islamic State will simply supply nominal support in order to continue expansion without garnering too much backlash in the region for their presence, as is indicated as a possibility by the US’ slowly shifting support to the Taliban. Once ISK wins, however long that will take, the conflict will likely slow in intensity. Tribal areas will be defended to maintain control until the Afghani and Pakistani governments accept this. Considering Hafiz Saeed Khan’s experience, he is unlikely to launch the violent campaigns that the TTP has been doing under Fazlullah to avoid backlash from the Pakistani government. It will maintain itself as a stable colony of the Islamic State and will likely be used to provide mujahideen to other parts of the Islamic State’s global war and to help project the Islamic State’s control further into SE Asia and Central Asia.