Left behind after U.S. withdrawal, some former members of Afghanistan’s U.S.-trained intelligence service and elite military units have enlisted in the only force currently challenging the country’s new rulers: Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, according to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
Hunted by the Taliban and lacking income, members of disbanded security forces provide recruits for the IS terrorist group in Afghanistan.
WSJ says the number of defectors joining the terrorist group is relatively small, but growing, according to Taliban leaders, former Afghan republic security officials and people who know the defectors.
Importantly, these new recruits reportedly bring to IS critical expertise in intelligence-gathering and warfare techniques, potentially strengthening the extremist organization’s ability to contest Taliban supremacy.
It is noted that although the Taliban Movement has promised amnesty to all those who worked with the former government, actually it has taken reprisals against them.
The Islamic State Khorasan Province (IS-K), which is the regional affiliate of the Islamic State terrorist group, is the most extreme and violent of all the jihadist militant groups in Afghanistan.
IS-K was set up in January 2015 at the height of IS's power in Iraq and Syria, before its self-declared caliphate was defeated and dismantled.
It recruits both Afghan and Pakistani jihadists, especially defecting members of the Afghan Taliban who don't see their own organization as extreme enough.
