On Tuesday, at least 25 people were killed in a terrorist attack by the Islamic State on a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan. Involving suicide bombers and gunmen, the attack targeted Taliban personnel being treated at the hospital.
This ISIS campaign is a significant problem for the Taliban. It doesn’t simply give the Taliban a taste of their own medicine, being similar in form to previous Taliban attacks. In addition, it undermines a core message of the group’s governance model: security and stability. ISIS attacks also threaten to fray ideological support away from the Taliban and into ISIS. The narrative of Islamist leadership in Afghanistan is not something that the Taliban wish to fight over.
That brings us to the United States.
While Washington traditionally shares counterterrorism intelligence without regard for broader political relationships, the U.S. should leverage its counterterrorism support to the Taliban. The Taliban need U.S. support, and the U.S. should make the Taliban pay for it. This is particularly pertinent with regard to two Biden administration commitments.
First is President Joe Biden’s commitment to evacuating U.S. citizens and close U.S. partners remaining in Afghanistan — a pledge made morally imperative by Biden’s decision to abandon the personnel in pursuit of a rapid evacuation from Kabul airport. Then there’s the president’s commitment to preventing Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for transnational terrorist groups — a commitment that, absent Taliban support, will be near impossible to fulfill.
Yet, as evinced by ISIS’s surprise attack, it’s clear that the Taliban are far less capable at counterterrorism than they are in their own insurgent activities.
Fortunately for the Taliban, the U.S. can help identify ISIS operatives and bases before they strike. While other nations such as China, Russia, and Pakistan could provide some measure of support in this regard, only the U.S. can do it to the degree that the Taliban need — which is to say, providing persistent satellite, communications, and drone strike coverage of ISIS operations across Afghanistan. The U.S. could feed the Taliban relevant intelligence in real time, allowing it to target ISIS forces. Alternatively, the U.S. could target ISIS on the Taliban’s behalf.
Such support to an erstwhile adversary shouldn’t come free. While the U.S. will target ISIS personnel targeting U.S. interests, it need not do the same against those targeting the Taliban. At least not for free.
In return for helping the Taliban, the U.S. should require greater support for U.S. and allied evacuation efforts. Washington should also make clear that the Taliban’s alliance with al Qaeda and other Salafi groups won’t simply result in a suspension of counterterrorism support with ISIS. The U.S. should warn that it will actively assist anti-Taliban groups in targeting Taliban military activities, and perhaps even target the Taliban directly.
This strategy would allow the U.S. to leverage something that the Taliban need, U.S. intelligence support, at the price tag of something they do not, evacuees and suspended support for al Qaeda. The wrong choice will result in some things that the Taliban cannot afford: a rising ISIS insurgency and escalating U.S. pressure on the Taliban’s governing authority.
It may seem immoral or unjust to leverage U.S. counterterrorism support with strings attached. Normally, it would be. But considering the U.S. interests at stake in Afghanistan and the limited means of achieving them without Taliban cooperation, such leveraging is absolutely justified.
