You can read part 1 here: Part 1: The Friends of the Taliban
You can read part 2 here: Part 2: The Friends of the Taliban
Other Terrorist Groups
According to the United Nations Security Council report, more than 20 terrorist groups, the vast majority of which are supported by the Taliban, are currently present in Afghanistan. More information is available about some of these groups, such as Al-Qaeda and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), due to their more prominent terrorist activities. However, the other extremist groups operating under Taliban control in Afghanistan are less known, and as a result, very little information is available about them. Even the scattered pieces of information that do exist are not recent or up-to-date, making them unreliable. Below, we attempt to explore the activities of some of these terrorist groups that are active in Afghanistan to the extent possible.
1) East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM)
This group, comprised of Uyghurs from China, is considered an ally of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The United Nations Security Council report states that ETIM has between 300 and 1,200 fighters in Afghanistan. The Taliban have provided Afghan passports and identification documents to members of this group. The East Turkestan Islamic Movement also gained new weapons and bases in 2022. Abdul Haq al-Turkistani, the leader of the movement, and Abdul Salam Turkistani, a senior commander, are based in northeastern Afghanistan. Abdul Haq al-Turkistani, who is also a member of Al-Qaeda’s leadership council, was listed as a global terrorist by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 2009. Although the Taliban have pledged to China and Pakistan that they will combat the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, it seems unlikely that they will strictly adhere to this commitment. The Taliban have made similar promises in the past but have failed to fulfill them.
2) Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU)
The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan was established in 1998 by Juma Namangani and Tahir Yuldash. Juma Namangani was killed in 2001, and Tahir Yuldash in 2009. After Yuldash’s death, Abu Usman Adil took over the leadership of the movement but was killed in 2012. Following Adil’s death, a leadership dispute arose between his deputy, Usman Ghazi, and Tahir Yuldash’s son, Abdulaziz Yuldash, which led to the movement splitting into two factions. In 2014, during the Pakistani military’s operation against TTP in Pakistan’s tribal areas, Usman Ghazi and 350 to 400 of his fighters moved to Zabul province, while Abdulaziz Yuldash and 150 to 200 fighters relocated to Kunar province before eventually moving to northwestern Afghanistan. Ghazi’s faction joined ISIS-K in 2015, while Yuldash’s faction was forced to pledge allegiance to the Taliban. Usman Ghazi was captured during a 2015 clash between ISIS and the Taliban in Zabul province, and his group suffered heavy losses. Abdulaziz Yuldash’s faction was also weakened after he died in 2020 in the Ghormach district of Faryab province. Reports suggest that the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan was divided into three factions—northeastern, northwestern, and eastern—between 2021 and 2022. Despite being weakened by clashes between ISIS and the Taliban and the deaths of its leaders, the group is expected to grow again under the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan, supported by Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. There is no doubt that it will become a significant threat to the region in the future.
3) Jamaat Ansarullah (Tajikistan Taliban)
This group, an ally of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, is led by Mahdi Arslan and is based in the districts of Maimai, Darwaz, Kufab, Khwahan, Nasai, and Shaki in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province. According to the Long War Journal, in 2021, the Taliban entrusted control of five districts in Badakhshan to Mahdi Arslan. Jamaat Ansarullah, also known as the Tajikistan Taliban, has around 200 fighters stationed in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province.
4) Mullahs
Mullahs or clerics hold significant influence and status in Afghanistan, and no group understands this better than the Taliban. The Taliban have extensively exploited the clergy to reach their current position and know that if they lose the support of the clerics, it will be challenging to maintain their hold on Afghanistan’s turbulent terrain. Only a Taliban member can be a dangerous rival to another Taliban member, as one Taliban knows the weaknesses of the other and understands how to use these weaknesses to bring them down. This weakness is none other than Islam itself. While the Taliban, through their interpretation of Islam, manage to suppress any opposition, critical clerics who support the Taliban regime can also challenge the group by leaning on their version of Islam. Here, Islam plays a dual role: it can serve as an ideological pillar for the Taliban, helping them crush their opponents, or it can become an effective ideological tool to challenge the group. The Taliban are well aware of this dual role, which is why they continue to give clerics an exceptional status and make every effort to keep them content.
The clerics and religious schools are among the most crucial pillars of the Taliban’s emirate, to the extent that the regime would be incomplete and unstable without them. Therefore, it is not surprising that over the past three years, the Taliban have poured all their resources into building religious schools, and this effort continues. The more religious schools there are, the stronger the military, political, and ideological foundations of the Taliban regime become. Most of these schools not only promote Taliban ideology but also serve as recruitment sources for terrorist groups. Fully Talibanizing regular schools and universities would require years of effort and planning, but religious schools have been Talibanized from the start, requiring only financial support to produce Islamist terrorists. This is why the Taliban show little interest in expanding regular schools and universities, focusing instead on strengthening religious schools.
You can read the Persian version of this analysis here:
بخش سوم: دوستان طالبان | روزنامه ۸صبح
You can read part 1 here: Part 1: The Friends of the Taliban
You can read part 2 here: Part 2: The Friends of the Taliban
You can read part 4 here: Part 4: The Friends of the Taliban
