The "Warmongers" Were Right
It was obvious handing Afghanistan over to the Taliban would create a new terror incubator
A terrible thing happened Friday night in Moscow. Four gunman casually walked into a concert hall and systematically murdered more than one hundred people. Given the high-density venue choice by the attackers, a tremendous amount of cellphone footage started circulating on social media almost immediately as the attack began. It’s harrowing and disturbing, and I don’t recommend exposing yourself to it firsthand.
Twitter was quick to start debating whether this was a false-flag incident in the same vein as the 1999 apartment bombings that were used by the Kremlin as a justification for the second Chechen war. While I suppose there is a non-zero chance the Kremlin would orchestrate a provocation to justify additional mobilization for their war in Ukraine, my immediate gut instinct was that this was the handiwork of ISKP:
Islamic State-Khorasan Province has time and again proven itself the most audacious of the Caliphate’s now splintered regional cells. It was just two months ago that a couple of ISKP operatives strapped explosive belts to themselves and killed almost one hundred people in Kerman at an Iranian state-organized memorial for the late Quds Force commander, Qassem Soleimani. The group was also responsible for the attack at Hamid Karzai International Airport’s Abbey Gate in August 2021 that killed thirteen U.S. servicemen.
This is a group that has demonstrated an ability to reach far beyond the confines of Afghanistan. While the world has been transfixed by the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, ISKP has been working in the shadows of the Hindu Kush planning attacks from the Maldives to Spain:
Over the past few days, multiple Islamic State Khurasan Province (ISKP)-linked external operations have been foiled, demonstrating a further expansion of the branch’s ambitions to internationalize and strike enemies located outside of its Afghanistan-Pakistan base. ISKP-connected plots have been disrupted in India, Iran, Germany, Austria, Spain, the Maldives, Qatar, Turkey, and Kyrgyzstan. ISKP has successfully conducted attacks inside Iran, and it is likely that more will slip through over time in other countries.
The Global War on Terror has largely receded from the public consciousness since the Biden administration withdrew from Afghanistan but Friday’s assault on Crocus City Hall won’t be ISKP’s last act of terror and you can be sure they have similar designs on American soft targets. This is exactly the scenario opponents of the 2021 pull-out dreaded: Afghanistan is now once again an unmanageable staging ground for international acts of terrorism.
I’ve been beating this drum for years now, writing back in August 2022 on my old blog:
Not only has the Taliban barbarically rolled back women’s rights to the seventh century, they’ve also spent no time delaying turning Afghanistan back into the pre-eminent global destination for expatriated international terrorists…The Taliban has professed they had no knowledge al-Zawahiri had moved in to a home in Afghanistan’s capital just blocks away from former diplomatic missions to the then Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. These denials are laughable and can be dismissed out of hand. The Taliban’s own “government” is partially comprised of members of the Haqqani Network–a group that has been recognized as a terrorist organization by the United States for a decade.
Who could have predicted The Taliban would let al-Qaeda’s #1 set up shop in Kabul once the U.S. withdrew its presence and support and the Afghan National Defense inevitably disintegrated?
I followed that up in November 2023 with a piece highlighting ISKP specifically and arguing that Ignoring Afghanistan is not an Option:
Despite the faults in America’s two-decade campaign in Afghanistan, we did achieve our primary goal of denying terrorists the staging ground to plan another 9/11-style attack on our homeland. These security gains evaporated overnight when the Biden administration surrendered the country to the same criminal theocratic warlords who governed it during the 1990s. And while the Taliban is in open conflict with ISKP, nobody should bank the security of the West on the Taliban’s ability to police one faction of terrorists in their midst.
ISKP has its sights on Moscow, Beijing, Berlin, Paris, London, Washington, and beyond. They’re straightforward about that desire in their various communiques. America no longer has the ground presence, political will, or ability to target the terror network operating out of Afghanistan. Unless we see a significant shift in Washington’s posture regarding ISKP, it’s only a matter of time before they successfully strike the American homeland.
Proponents of continuing the limited U.S. personnel presence in Afghanistan were often decried as warmongers by both political parties’ isolationist elements up until the withdrawal. But those warmongers knew the can of worms that was about to open the moment we disappeared from the Bagram airbase in the middle of the night like the Baltimore Colts.
Armenia/Azerbaijan
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan expressed a desire to cede disputed territory to Azerbaijan last week in an effort to stave off another round of war between the two south Caucus nations:
Armenia could face a war with Azerbaijan if it does not compromise with Baku and return four Azerbaijani villages it has held since the early 1990s, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in a video published on Tuesday. Pashinyan was speaking during a meeting on Monday with residents of border areas in northern Armenia's Tavush region, close to a string of deserted Azerbaijani villages that Yerevan has controlled since the early 1990s.
I’m skeptical that Pashinyan’s proposed village transfer would be enough to buy a lasting peace with Baku as there’s not much restraining the Aliyev dictatorship’s ambition in our current rules-free international arena. Armenia certainly recognizes the precarious situation it finds itself in after being abandoned by Moscow in 2020 and is actively seeking to strengthen ties with the West:
Buzz had been building in recent months that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government is serious about exploring the EU accession process. On March 9, in comments made on the sidelines of a diplomatic gathering in Turkey, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan publicly signaled Yerevan’s interest. “Many new opportunities are largely being discussed in Armenia nowadays and it will not be a secret if I say that includes membership in the European Union,” Turkey’s TRT channel quoted Mirzoyan as saying.
Sudan
United States special envoy to Sudan Tom Perriello announced the U.S. will seek to revive peace talks between Sudan’s warring military and Rapid Support Forces at the conclusion of Ramadan:
Saudi Arabia and the United States led talks in Jeddah last year to try to reach a truce between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), but the negotiations faltered amid competing international peace initiatives.
"We need to restart formal talks. We hope that will happen as soon as Ramadan is over," Tom Perriello, who took up his role as U.S. special envoy to Sudan late last month, told reporters.
"Everybody understands that this crisis is barrelling towards a point of no return, and that means everybody needs to put whatever differences aside and be united in finding a solution to this conflict."
The Sudanese civil war has quietly spawned the world’s worst current hunger crisis according to the United Nations. It’s a hunger crisis that the RSF is horrifically now weaponizing to forcibly conscript additional soldiers to their cause:
In mid-December, the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) swept into Sudan’s central Al Jazira state, known as the country’s breadbasket, with an ultimatum: “Enlist or die.” Since then, the militia group has sought to use food as a weapon, withholding supplies from the hungry in a bid to coerce men and boys to join its ranks, according to over three dozen witnesses.
If you want to hear first hand how this war is impacting the beleaguered civilian population in the country, I included a heartbreaking feature from Deutsche Welle in Thursday Screening a couple of weeks ago.
Burkina Faso
An Associated Press investigation published on Saturday depicted in excruciating detail the Burkinabe military’s wholesale slaughter of civilians suspected of coordinating with insurgents:
It was early Sunday morning when the farmer heard gunshots in the distance. Violence in Namentenga province is frequent, locals said; shootings and patrolling soldiers are common. About 3 p.m., the farmer said, hundreds of men — most in military fatigues — stormed through on motorbikes and trucks and started indiscriminately killing people. He hid at the neighbor's home, he said, and after hours of gunshots, the man with the flag entered. "The soldier told us that his colleagues were in the other compound," the farmer said. "He said he didn't want to hurt us, but if the others realized we were still alive, they'd kill us." When the guns stopped, he said, he left the compound and saw Zaongo littered with the dead.
Ibrahim Traoré’s military regime seems incapable of protecting Burkina Faso’s civilian population from al-Qaeda’s increasing violence and is indiscriminately meting out extrajudicial killings with no regard for human rights. In response, the State Department has called on the junta to “complete investigations of these incidents with integrity and transparency”. That’ll probably convince them.
Haiti
The situation in Haiti is continuing to unravel into jaw-dropping anarchy:
For three weeks, Haiti’s capital has been trapped in a gory cycle that far exceeds the kidnapping and gang violence for which it was already known. An insurgent league of heavily armed gangs is waging war on the city itself, seeking new territory and targeting police and state institutions. Scared and angry, vigilante groups are blocking off their neighborhoods with felled trees and chains, killing and burning outsiders suspected of gang membership. It’s the only way, they say, to defend themselves.
It’s almost unfathomable that in 2024 a Caribbean state could fail so spectacularly. Haiti has never been a paragon of stability but the past few weeks have produced some of the most shocking imagery and tales of human depravity that I’ve ever seen. Hopefully international peacekeeping forces are able to restore a semblance of order in Port-au-Prince in the near future.
Venezuela
Maria Corina Machado has yielded to a replacement candidate in Venezuela’s upcoming July election after being officially barred from running by the country’s high court in January:
Venezuela opposition leader Maria Corina Machado on Friday named Corina Yoris as her successor to take on President Nicolas Maduro in the country's presidential election in July, following the arrest of two of Machado's close aides. With Venezuela's opposition under pressure to pick a candidate to register their candidacy with the National Electoral Council before the March 25 deadline, the decision to pick historian Yoris, 80, all but marks the end of Machado's presidential aspirations.
Regardless of opponent, Maduro’s not going anywhere come July’s election. The Despot of Caracas will use every bit of electoral chicanery he can to ensure that.
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