Following the Taliban takeover of the Afghan government in August last year, there have been many attacks in the region carried out by various terrorist groups. The most active one has been the Islamic State, also known as Daesh. The group has a local branch called the ISIS-Khorasan which has been active in creating trouble in the region. There have been three recent attacks in Afghanistan, out of which the most recent one has been claimed by the Daesh, this one was on a Sufi mosque in the hub of the radical groups. The other two that remain unclaimed were in a mosque and outside a boys’ school in a Shia neighbourhood. Both factions the Sufis and the Shias are abhorred by the radical Islamist group as well as the ruling Taliban that consider them heretics. With such attacks gaining momentum there is a chance of an increase in violence and as a result of a sectarian war.
Afghanistan’s Taliban are hardliner Sunnis who also have many times attacked minorities in the region. The Shias who are mostly Hazaras have been tormented by the radical group since their birth. Moreover, like ISIS, they too do not accept any belief other than that of the Sunni doctrine. This has always caused much trouble to the minorities living in Afghanistan. Even in Pakistan, the Pakistani faction of the Taliban has attacked the Pakistani Hazara community (who are predominantly Shia) multiple times. When the Taliban came into power in August of 2021, they disarmed the Hazara community of Afghanistan, which had their own protection units as they have always been a target of violence. Without any protection of their own and for obvious reasons, no protection from the government, they are vulnerable to attacks such as these. They were rather safer during the governments of Hamid Karzai and later on Ashraf Ghani. Several hundreds of Taliban and Daesh terrorists were jailed for attacking Shias. When the Taliban captured Kabul, they released all such terrorists, putting the lives of Shias at risk. The devil of terrorism keeps on striking Shias and other vulnerable sections from time to time gaining no or a little condemnation from the ruling mullahs.
The timing of the attacks may be used as a reason for both sides to start a sectarian war. The Taliban must realize that such a conflict looms over Afghanistan and among other problems they will surely fail to keep the unrest at bay. Afghanistan is going through a humanitarian crisis; people are hungry and dying as poverty is rampant in the country. The addition of targeted attacks on minority communities will lead to a disaster that the Taliban may not be able to clean up. The growing level of poverty, lack of proper infrastructure of schools and hospitals, and such attacks will encourage more and more people to take up arms against each other. Afghanistan is not equipped to fight any wars at the moment and if the security situation worsens, there will be a threat to the Taliban government itself. The Taliban do not have the capacity to fight terrorism along modern lines, therefore, they must protect all communities that reside in Afghanistan and focus on eradicating the common enemy that is ISIS. Moreover, the world also must take action against the massacre of Shias in Afghanistan and force and help the regime to stem the tide of attacks.
