Taliban minister’s killing raises concerns about IS terror group’s expansion

 

Taliban Humvees are seen parked during the funeral ceremony of Khalil Ur-Rahman Haqqani, the minister for refugees and repatriation, in Sarana, Afghanistan, on Dec. 12, 2024.

ISLAMABAD —

The recent assassination of a Taliban minister in Afghanistan by a local Islamic State offshoot has raised concerns about the terrorist network\’s expansion in the region, while signifying an escalation of the terror group’s conflict with the country’s de facto Taliban leaders.

Taliban Minister of Refugees and Repartition Khalil-Ur-Rahman Haqqani was killed, along with several staff members, in a suicide bombing while he was exiting his office in the Afghan capital on Wednesday.

Haqqani, 58, is the highest-profile target of Islamic State-Khorasan, or IS-K, since the Taliban swept back to power in August 2021. The group has so far killed at least eight high-ranking Taliban officials and prominent figures in suicide bombings. The victims include the governors of the northern Afghan provinces of Balkh and Badakhshan.

FILE – Pakistani army troops patrol along the border with Afghanistan at Big Ben post in Khyber district, Pakistan, on Aug. 3, 2021.

TTP, a globally designated terrorist group, has waged attacks against Pakistan and has intensified its cross-border raids since the Taliban seized power in Kabul.

The IS-K began its extremist operations in the region in early 2015 and mainly consisted of defectors from members of the then-insurgent Afghan Taliban and the TTP.

Despite both being ardent advocates of the strict interpretation of Islamic law known as Sharia, the Sunni-based Afghan Taliban and IS-K are notorious for their intense rivalry.

ISIS-K claimed responsibility for multiple attacks it carried out beyond the Afghan borders in 2024. The targets included a memorial service in Shiite Iran, a Moscow concert hall and a church in Turkey, collectively killing nearly 250 people.

Pakistan, while briefing the Security Council Thursday, highlighted growing TTP attacks, saying the violence is being orchestrated from Afghan hideouts.

“The TTP — with 6,000 fighters — is the largest listed terrorist organization operating in Afghanistan. With safe havens close to our border, it poses a direct and daily threat to Pakistan’s security,” Usman Iqbal Jadoon, the Pakistani representative at the U.N., told the meeting Thursday.

“We have evidence of its [the TTP’s] collaboration with other terrorist groups … to disrupt Pakistan’s economic cooperation with China. Given its long association with al-Qaida, the TTP could emerge as al-Qaida’s arm with a regional and global terrorist agenda,” Jadoon asserted without elaborating further.

Taliban leaders deny allegations Afghanistan is being used by foreign militants, including the TTP, to threaten other countries, including Pakistan.

 

By：VOA