Posted on 12/09/2015 2:38:28 PM PST by huldah1776
While NATO sees no danger of Islamic State (ISIS) gaining a strong enough foothold in Afghanistan to represent a serious threat to regional security, Russia is concerned that the jihadist organization is growing in strength and may soon supplant the Taliban - and Moscow fears that ISIS has ultimate plans to make Central Asia part of its caliphate.
Russia and the West diverge in their assessments of whether Islamic State (ISIS) is expanding geographically and constitutes a disaster waiting to happen in Afghanistan. Lack of understanding and cooperation on the ground might once again, as in Syria, only be a prelude to a rough awakening to the actual scale of the threat.
In the previous week NATO has pledged to maintain the 12,000-strong contingent of its troops and instructors throughout 2016 as part of its Resolute Support mission. Yet the alliance has dismissed the assumption that ISIS could be in a position to dismember the Taliban, radicalize the local tribes, and turn it into a province of the caliphate.
This does not resonate with articles in the British newspapers The Times and The Guardian this week describing in detail the scale of state-building and strategic ambitions of ISIS. It is also not compatible with the opinion of General Stanley McChrystal (retired), who helped destroy ISIS's predecessor organization (ISI) in Iraq from 2006 to 2008. "If the West sees ISIS as an almost stereotypical band of psychopathic killers," he has said, "we risk dramatically underestimating them."
Moscow views recent developments in Afghanistan in an alarming context. Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov has revealed that, according to intelligence sources, ISIS has "established its presence in 25 out of 34 Afghan provinces." According to UN experts' estimates, the numbers of ISIS fighters in the four districts south of Jalalabad total between 1,200 and 1,600. Some are elite fighters. This apart, Taliban militants are also defecting to ISIS.
Should Moscow look well ahead and start mapping out contingency plans? Talking to Troika Report, Alexander Ignatenko, president of the Moscow-based Institute of Religion and Politics, assessed the level of the security threat to Russia and its allies posed by the gradual advancement of ISIS into the non-Arab region.
"The expansion of ISIS in the region has gone along proven routes, with its sponsors simply buying out whole units of Al-Qaeda or other extremist groups in a particular country. An explicit example is Boko Haram (in Nigeria): Originally this organization had no relations with ISIS, but then it allowed itself to be bought, swore allegiance to ISIS, and furthermore, became the nucleus of what is called the 'Islamic State's vilayet of Western Africa'."
- Are we witnessing the implementation of the ISIS grand project of a caliphate stretching from Morocco to Central Asia?
"Not exactly. There is a transparent geopolitical and economic interest for ISIS's sponsor - and this is Qatar - when it comes to Afghanistan: to prevent the construction of a gas pipeline known as TAPI. The idea of TAPI is to supply gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan and India.
"Moreover, this is only part of the long-term strategy. Once Afghanistan falls under the rule of ISIS, Qatar will proceed further, to the northern border of the Muslim-populated China's Xinjiang Province. The goal is to have a stronghold to prevent the coming onstream of another major infrastructure project, the Power of Siberia pipeline, designed to supply Russian natural gas to China."
What Ignatenko is basically saying amounts to the following uncomfortable truth: Qatar, for the purpose of maintaining its present dominant position on the global market of liquefied natural gas (LNG), is ready to eliminate alternative suppliers by using Islamic State militants either as an instrument of regime change or, if this tactic fails, as a potent irritant that will create regional instability and, consequently, raise the risks of any investment enterprises.
- An opinion has been floated that Russia should not get involved in the Afghanistan quagmire. Yet, Russia is currently fighting ISIS in Syria, so why not confront it on the ground much closer to Central Asia, which is rightly considered Russia's "soft underbelly"?
"Those who claim that the Taliban would remain a closed Pashtun-centered movement and would never expand northward are making a mistake. The Taliban would definitely move into Central Asia either as an affiliate of Islamic State or as part of an alliance of Islamist radicals already in existence in this part of the world, like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the anti-China East Turkistan Islamic Movement, etc."
- Is this threat being neglected or underestimated in Moscow?
"It is my understanding that the Russian political and military leadership is getting ready for such a scenario. Certain pre-emptive measures are being taken within the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Both organizations regularly hold military exercises with the aim of confronting the threat of terrorism."
While acknowledging the threat of ISIS in Afghanistan, Russia's top officials are not in a hurry to get involved. Moscow will "thoughtfully" assess requests from the government in Kabul for arms supplies, said Zamir Kabulov, Russian presidential special envoy for Afghanistan. At the same time, Russian Permanent Representative to NATO Alexander Grushko pointed out that in 12 years the 140,000-strong NATO contingent in Afghanistan has failed to eliminate the internal security threats. As long NATO considers Afghanistan its zone of strategic interest, it is unlikely that Russia would step in.
Yet, the security environment here is volatile. The gearing up of internal feuds among local radicals has been evidenced lately by the as-yet unconfirmed death of the Taliban's elected leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour, who was reportedly targeted by militants of an ISIS-led breakaway cell. It appears likely, since Mullah Mansour supported the Afghan-focused agenda and was reluctant to accept the expansionist drive of Islamic State.
This is only proof that the internal strife in the Taliban is heating up. Should the Taliban split and end up being reformatted into an expansionist force targeting neighboring countries, it will become part of a global issue. The consolidation and internationalization of terrorist groupings all along the Arc of Instability will require a concerted response by Russia and its allies.
Thanks, Obama, GREAT foreign policy.
Isis will have a hard time getting a real foothold in Afghanistan because the taliban are pashtun nationalist something that isis thinks makes you a apostate, and pashtun nationalism is huge in Afghanistan
Screw NATO. God has reshuffled the deck again. We now need all Judeo-Christian and non-Muslim nations in the world (including Russia, China and India)) to unite against the spreading barbaric Islamofascist totalitarian threat!
If a snake successfully
swallows his own tail,
is he still a snake?
Let the taliban and isis kill each other in Afghanistan until one side wins and then nuke them.
I will take Russia for $500.
No gubmit institution in the U.S. can be believed...except, perhaps, for the FBI.
The results on the “Hildabeast the Repulsive Felon”investigation will soon determine the FBI’s status.
Very interesting !
The Russians get it !
If Turkey invades Syria from the rear would Greece help?
You do realize that’s his intent, don’t you?
400 quatloos on the newcomer
ISIS just assassinated the main Taliban leader
It remains to be seen what sheer brutalism wrapped in the sternest possible form of sharia will do to Afghanistan
Remember that Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda flourished in Afghanistan and they were not pashtun
The Russians have pumped up forces in Armenia
Surely they would be happy to help
Greece has already assisted Russia by allowing air overflights- they are suffering form the Turkish facilitated muslim Hijrah
Yes, the Islamic world Empire is back on the march—must kill Al Baghdadi where ever he’s hiding. You thought European Imperalism was bad —just wait til the black turbaned Islamic warriors take over!
Yeah, I was impressed and might, might, check out that site more often.
I speak with a woman from India and she knows nothing about the news but when I brought up Muslims she got testy. They HATE Pakistan. I searched for a map with Muslim populated countries. 1/3 of the earth and it’s all brown (googled earth).
http://orig09.deviantart.net/7871/f/2013/072/1/0/1063517287a051a47747b5d784d85088-d554e8o.png
Funny thing about Putin. He thought the head of our executive branch was a communist first, but he’s not. Bad intel.
This article is thoughtfully and well written. The analysis looks pretty spot on.
The Chinese are also very concerned about ISIS in Afghanistan.
Too close to their border and they have problems with Muslims, too. So much for investing in rare earth minerals.
Taliban is capturing Afghanistan’s $1 trillion mining wealth [wait till ISIS hears this one]
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
