Mosque in Kabul targeted in ISIS suicide bombing leaving 50 dead.

 

File photo of Khalifa Sahib Mosque. The Daily Mail.

A mosque in Kabul was targeted by an ISIS suicide bomber leaving 50 people dead. Reuters/The Daily Mail. The exact numbers are unclear but many more may have been injured in the attack and the death toll could grow, with one source claiming as many as 200 deaths. The Zikr prayers that were being performed in the mosque are considered heretical by hardline Sunni groups like ISIS. The attack happened on the last Friday of Ramadan, Islam's holy month and a common time for terror attacks. ISIS has made a resurgence in Afghanistan after the Taliban took over, with today's attack being one in a series of attacks mostly targeting mosques. 

My Comment:

I apologize for using the Daily Fail as a source here but to be fair, it's not like I had many options. Reuters appears to be the only wire service picking this story up and I'm out of free articles from them this month. The only other news outlet I found reporting on this was The Guardian and their article wasn't as good as The Daily Mail's. I honestly think the reporting is fine at The Daily Mail, it's just the sidebar links are so distasteful. 

I am not surprised that the media is mostly ignoring ISIS's resurgence in Afghanistan. It brings up the uncomfortable fact that Joe Biden totally screwed up Afghanistan. They would prefer the country remain out of the news for the foreseeable future lest people remember that when Trump left office the Taliban hadn't taken over and ISIS was mostly destroyed. 

But I get the feeling that Afghanistan is going to be in the news more often now. The Taliban's hold on the country is fragile and ISIS is running amok at the moment. It's also now fighting season in Afghanistan so if a civil war were to break out now would be the time. ISIS is clearly gearing up their terror attacks with this major bombing just being the most severe and most recent. It's hardly the only one though as several other mosques have been bombed as well. 

I am not sure what the actual problem with the Zikr prayers are. ISIS has a problem with it but from what I understand it's a Sunni Islam practice. ISIS usually targets Shiite Muslims but also regularly target Sunni ones that they disagree with and I guess that's reasoning enough for them. It doesn't make much sense to me though. 

ISIS has also started to attack Pakistan as well and I worry that they might used the failed state of Afghanistan to continue to do so. The Taliban's hold on the country is not strong in all places and they might be too busy just trying to survive to deal with ISIS. 

The other problem for the Taliban is that their opponent is fairly evenly matched. It was US airpower and fire support that helped the former Afghan government get ISIS under control. The Taliban will not have that this time around and it will essentially be light infantry vs light infantry, which neither side will have that much of an advantage. The Taliban do have a major artillery advantage and captured a lot of US gear but even then it's not going to be a curbstomp when the two sides finally do engage in warfare. 

As for ISIS I do fear a resurgence from them. Many of their enemies are distracted right now. Russia is obviously bogged down in Ukraine while all of Europe watches on. The United States is just plain out to lunch with a President that probably doesn't even remember his own name half the time, let alone knows what to do about ISIS. 

The good news is that Afghanistan is isolated enough that even if ISIS were to take over much of the country it would only be a long term threat, not a short term one. There isn't much infrastructure left to capture there and that is what is needed for ISIS to launch major international attacks like they were doing between 2013 and 2016. Without wealth ISIS will remain on the backburner.