ISIS attack in Afghanistan kills 25 Sikhs.

Damage inside of the temple. Reuters.

An ISIS attack on a Sikh temple in Kabul has killed 25 people. Reuters. The attack was made up of gunmen and suicide bombers. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, blaming India's treatment of Muslims. There are only around 300 Sikh families in Afghanistan. Security forces killed the remaining ISIS fighters. 8 people were wounded in the attack and 80 more were rescued. ISIS has been defeated in most countries but are still active in Afghanistan, with this being the 2nd major attack there this month. 

My Comment:

Though I am happy to not be writing about the Coronavirus, I do have to mention it very briefly in this post. I find it very strange that Afghanistan hasn't banned gathering like this. Having more than 100 people all crowded together like this would have been a good way to spread the virus. And if they had adopted social distancing this attack would not have happened as there wouldn't have been enough people to attack. The country only has 84 cases so maybe they haven't decided to implement it yet. 

I was unaware that there were any Sikhs in Afghanistan. There cannot be that many as 300 families is basically nothing. These people were attacked because of their religion. There has been a long history of attacks between Muslims and Sikhs and the chaos in India right now with their laws may have provoked the attack. Of course, whatever happened in India obviously doesn't justify attacking a bunch of people that had nothing to do with it. 

ISIS has fallen into the background, mostly because they have been completely routed in the rest of the world. Afghanistan is one of the last places where the terror group still exists. And the only reason they are still there is because both the Taliban and the Afghan government are too busy fighting each other to fight ISIS effectively. 

Terrorism too has taken a backseat lately as well. There seems to be fewer attacks and I can't remember a major one since the Sri Lanka Easter attacks last year. Part of that is due to the Coronavirus outbreak but even before that happened terror attacks, at least in the western world. Muslim terror attacks in general have faded quite a bit.

This is obviously due to the fact that ISIS has been largely destroyed. Their bases in Libya, Iraq and Syria have been destroyed and even holdout groups in Nigeria, Yemen and Egypt have been reduced. Only Afghanistan remains a problem and even that will probably change as a peace deal seems more likely. 

But I do think that Coronavirus might change everything. Like I said, attacks won't be possible if everyone is in lockdown. And ISIS fighters too will get sick and possibly even die. It's not like they have access to the best medial care or anything, and it's not like they are going to get any help from anyone with treatments or masks. Indeed, it's possible that the thing that wipes out ISIS in Afghanistan is the Coronavirus...