Bombing targeting a religious school in Afghanistan leaves 17 dead

 

Some of the survivors of the attack recovering at the hospital. BBC/AFP.

A bombing targeting a religious school has left 17 people dead in Afghanistan. BBC. 26 people were wounding in the bombing that occurred in Aybak. The victims are mostly children aged 9 to 15 and were students at the school. Afghanistan was taken over by the Taliban last year and they have had major problems with terrorism since then. 

Fox News is reporting that the Taliban blame ISIS for the attack. Fox News quoted a Taliban source directly and they confirmed that ISIS was behind the attack. ISIS-K is the local ISIS affiliate and is one of the more active ones, being responsible for many terror attacks in Afghanistan. 

My Comment:

Afghanistan again is a mess and it obviously has not improved with the Taliban taking over. Though ISIS has not taken credit for the attack, I believe the Taliban when they are saying they are responsible. Why? Because ISIS is the biggest terror group in the country and it certainly isn't al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is a shell if its former self and are basically allies with the Taliban, they wouldn't attack them. 

ISIS also has a long history of targeting schools and children. Indeed, one of their African affiliates, Boko Haram, translates to "education is forbidden". You would think that the differences between the Taliban and ISIS would be small enough that they wouldn't care about religious schools, but that isn't the case. ISIS believes that nobody should teach children but them and if anyone else is doing so the lives of those children are forfeit.

This is one of the main reasons that ISIS is one of the evilest groups in recent histories. Even most terrorists are loath to target schools and children. But ISIS has always made targeting them a priority and have no problems with it whatsoever. It's what makes them such a horrible group and one of the reasons I still cover them even though they are far past their heyday. 

Still, this attack shows that the Afghanistan branch at least has some life in them. This was a fairly big and sophisticated attack and it is far from the only one ISIS has pulled off since they lost their main bases in Syria and Iraq. Indeed, ISIS-K is the biggest remaining affiliate and they may be making a bit of a resurgence. 

 The Taliban are now seeing what it is like to have an insurgency facing them instead of them being the insurgency. In theory they should be able to handle it but given how much of a mess Afghanistan is and the lack of foreign support, they may have serious difficulty taking ISIS out. I don't know if they will get any help in their war against ISIS either, they have burned a lot of bridges. 

Should the United States care? I guess it depends. Right now ISIS-K isn't anything other than a regional threat. But I do worry that if ISIS takes enough territory there they may be able to use Afghanistan to launch terror attacks throughout the world. That is, of course, what al-Qaeda did back in 2001. The big difference is that the Taliban offered al-Qaeda sanctuary and support and ISIS will not be getting the same thing obviously.