Wang Jin: After the terrorist attack and the United States, Atta is looking for a way to break the situation?
Author: Wang Jin, Associate Professor, Institute of Middle East Studies, Northwestern University, Researcher of The Center for Syrian Studies, And Fellow of Chahar Society
Source: Look at the News, 2021-10-10; Chahar Institute
WeChat platform editor: Zhou Yue
On October 9, local time, the Afghan Taliban and the U.S. government delegation met in Doha, the capital of Qatar, the first meeting between the two sides since the Withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. During the day's talks, the two sides focused on the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan.
Just a day earlier, a bomb attack on a mosque in Kunduz, the capital of Kunduz province in Afghanistan's northern province, had killed at least dozens of people. Shortly after the attack, the Khorasan branch of the Extremist State in Afghanistan declared responsibility for the attack. Since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the extremist group Islamic State has orchestrated multiple terrorist attacks against civilians inside Afghanistan, highlighting the counterterrorism pressures facing Afghanistan.
As a radical group that pursues Islamic extremism, the extremist group Islamic State tends to be more inclined to launch attacks against other Muslim groups. Ideologically, there is a big difference between the extremist group Islamic State and another terrorist organization, al-Qaida. Regardless of the type of Islamic terrorist organization, the dilemma of the Islamic world is blamed on two factors, namely, the oppression of the external "infidel state" and the "impure faith" of the internal Muslim community, so almost all Islamic terrorist organizations call for resistance to external aggression and at the same time "purify" the Islamic world through violent means.
But al-Qaida and the extremist group Islamic State have fundamental differences in strategic planning. Al Qaeda believes that the disaster of the Islamic world is mainly due to the oppression of the Western world, so it is necessary to give priority to launching terrorist attacks against "infidels" and crushing the United States and the Western world in order to save the Islamic world. In contrast, the extremist organization "Islamic State" believes that the hegemony and bullying of the Islamic world by the Western world stem from the weakness and degeneration within the Islamic world, so it is necessary to give priority to reviving the faith within the Islamic world and liberating the Islamic world, and the hegemony of the Western world and "infidels" will naturally disintegrate.
The differences in strategic thinking between the extremist groups Islamic State and al-Qaida have led to differences in their strategic behavior. Al-Qaida, through cooperation with rebel groups within different Islamic countries, has helped these rebel groups train extremists and terrorists and to orchestrate attacks against Western countries and Western installations and personnel in the Islamic world. In 2014, the extremist group Islamic State directly announced the establishment of a "caliphate" above all Islamic political and religious authorities, and challenged the political map and religious authority of the Islamic world in the name of the "caliphate."
As a branch of the extremist organization "Islamic State" in Afghanistan, the name of the "Khorasan branch" comes from the ancient Islamic world's name for Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern India east of Iran, so under the discourse system of the extremist organization "Islamic State", the "Khorasan branch" is the highest political and religious "authority" in Afghanistan and the surrounding region, and is in a natural state of opposition to the Afghan Taliban and the "Islamic Emirate" it established.
Similar to the targets of the extremist group Islamic State in other Middle Eastern countries, the Khorasan branch has also targeted other Muslim groups in its region. In the eyes of the extremist organization "Islamic State", the islamic extremist teachings it preaches are the only correct religious ideas. Other religions, such as Islam and Islamic groups, are "illegal" and should therefore be "purged".
In Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Libya and Lebanon, the extremist group Islamic State (ISIS) has identified local Christian churches, Islamic Shiite mosques, Islamic Sufi orders, etc., as "infidels" or "heretics" and launched attacks to "purge" them. The mosque where Kunduz was attacked by the "Khorasan branch" was also a religious site for the Shiite followers of the main local Hazaras.
Shiites make up about 15 to 20 percent of the country's population, and are concentrated in the northern and western regions of Afghanistan. Since the new Afghan Taliban-led government has just been established, and the domestic political order and economic reconstruction still face many difficulties, the "Khorasan branch" will inevitably be able to find new opportunities and expand its power in Afghanistan. More needs to be done to eradicate terrorism, the Afghan Taliban and the new Afghan Interim Government.
*Disclaimer: This article only represents the personal views of the author and does not represent the position of this official account
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