Afghanistan Adviser Claims Taliban Hardliners Joining ISIS, al-Qaeda

Provides no evidence of defections, but says it proves they don't want peace

Afghanistan’s National Security Adviser Hamdullah Mohib, in comments to Fox News on Tuesday, accused hardliners from the Taliban of defecting to ISIS and al-Qaeda. He said this proves they didn’t want to join the peace process.

Mohib did not offer any evidence to support this assertion, but did say that Afghanistan’s intelligence community had reports that this was the case. He is not the first Afghan official to make such an allegation.

It’s not hard to see why this would be a very appealing accusation for the Afghan government to advance. The Ghani government has long been averse to the US-Taliban peace process, and presenting the Taliban as untrustworthy has been a main talking point on that.

At the same time, President Trump has already declared the peace process dead, so it’s no longer clear why Taliban hardliners who don’t want peace would feel the need to defect. If anything, the current situation should vindicate them in saying the US couldn’t be trusted.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.