Michael Hughes
August 30, 2024

The CIA claims it established a back channel with the Taliban to cooperate on operations against anti-Western terrorist groups, while suggesting dire warnings of Afghanistan becoming a terrorist sanctuary are overblown. The narrative has been spun harder recently, undeniably for political purposes ahead of a presidential election, but the covert agency’s assertions are hardly plausible, both with respect to the reality on the ground in Afghanistan and nature of ties to the radical movement. 

“We have been engaging with them [Taliban], all throughout this period, in various ways, as they have taken on the effort to combat both al-Qaeda and ISIS-K,” CIA Deputy Director David Cohen said at a conference outside Washington on August 28. “This isn’t a ‘mission accomplished’ sort of thing. But it is worth noting that in Afghanistan today, the dire predictions have not come to pass.”

Terrorist groups of course are flourishing in Afghanistan, as we’ve repeatedly highlighted based on several sources including the UNSC. Al-Qaeda in fact is quickly expanding as we speak, and doubts have been raised about Taliban efforts against IS-K. Afghan resistance leader Ahmad Massoud stressed the two extremist entities share an ideology, and fresh analysis is supporting the notion that the Taliban and IS-K may not be opposed after all.

So, Cohen is either delusional or lying, and the latter is more likely given the CIA is highly incentivized to deliberately obscure reality. For starters, it would undermine part of the rationale for the U.S. exit – that any post-withdrawal emergence of Afghan-based terrorist groups that pose a threat to the American homeland can be handled with over-the-horizon operations. And it provides fodder for partisans who were opposed to the withdrawal and wanted to maintain the coalition’s occupation of Afghanistan. The obvious lack of progress suggests the CIA’s communications with the Taliban are nonexistent, ineffective, or about something entirely different.

The spotlight on CIA-Taliban bonds aligns with allegations the U.S hopes terrorists in Afghanistan grow more powerful and plague the region, including rivals like Iran, China, and Russia. Why else would the coalition let $7 billion in weaponry fall into Taliban hands and regime allies like al-Qaeda? The Russians say they have evidence the United States is secretly sponsoring Daesh in Afghanistan. Ex-President Hamid Karzai as early as 2017 described Daesh as a ‘U.S. tool.’ Karzai routinely received reports about unmarked helicopters dropping weapons to the terror group on the Afghan-Pakistani border – missions Washington never explained.

U.S. support for terrorism is not some outlandish concept, and we need not look too far back in history for indisputable proof. The U.S. armed an al-Qaeda affiliate, the Nusra Front, among other extremist outfits, in a bid to counter Syria and Russia. In addition to arming jihadists in Afghanistan, the U.S. spread a violent extremist ideology throughout Soviet republics in Central Asia during the Cold War, an illustration Washington’s toolbox is not relegated to weaponry.

The CIA indirectly assisted in the formation of the Taliban, given the number of mujahideen they armed during the anti-Soviet jihad. Short-sighted geopolitical pivots mark the U.S. long relationship with the Taliban and its ilk. The CIA were close allies with the holy warriors during the 1980s, their enemies after 9/11, only to return as strange bedfellows a couple decades later. 

Now certain elements within the hallways of power in Washington are likely quite content with how terrorists have targeted Russia. Moscow’s potentially futile outreach to the Taliban could signal Russian vulnerability as well as desperation. There must be a sense in Moscow that the Taliban are not interested in cracking down on terrorists and certainly cannot control the Islamic State. As extremist forces expand across the region, Central Asia appears once again like an open wound – an opportunity to promote and exploit instability across Russia’s underbelly.

Meanwhile, IS-K has been carving a route from Afghanistan through Central Asia via multiple channels, including propaganda. Daesh has urged jihadists to attack their respective home governments, with a recent high focus on Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, according to a West Point think tank. Even if IS-K was somehow effectively countered in Afghanistan, stopping their growth is another matter altogether.

“ISK… retains the determination and capacity to conduct destabilizing high-profile attacks in multiple countries. The group remains resilient, but more worryingly, it has learned to adapt its strategy and tactics to fit evolving dynamics, and exploit local, regional, and global grievances and conflicts,” the study says.

The Taliban’s inability or unwillingness to crack down on IS-K will continue to have grave consequences for the region, not to mention the prospect they could be supporting Daesh. Although there is finally some noise being heard in the West that the Taliban and IS-K are not enemies, one wonders if these entities are getting support – be it weaponry, intelligence, or otherwise – from a greater material power, one beyond Afghan borders.