Following is the June 2023 installment of “Afghanistan Terrorism Report.” The
authors provide a monthly analysis concerning the developing terrorist threat
in Afghanistan as well as a comprehensive overview of that month’s al-Qaeda and
ISIS-K propaganda.





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Afghanistan Terrorism Report: June 2023



Afghanistan Terrorism Report: June 2023

By Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler and Joshua Fisher-Birch

Read CEP’s Latest Afghanistan Terrorism Report
<[link removed]>

Following is the June 2023 installment of “Afghanistan Terrorism Report.” The
authors provide a monthly analysis concerning the developing terrorist threat
in Afghanistan as well as a comprehensive overview of that month’s al-Qaeda and
ISIS-K propaganda.



In June, the number of attacks in Afghanistan claimed by ISIS-K-linked
propaganda outlets remained very small. This continues the trend of
ISIS-K-linked propaganda outlets only reporting on significant attacks. By far,
the most impactful terrorist operations by ISIS-K in Afghanistan were the
killing of the Taliban deputy governor of Badakhshan,Nissar Ahmad Ahmadi
<[link removed]>
, by an ISIS-K car bomb followed by an ISIS-K suicide bomber attack onAhmadi’s
funeral
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a few days later. This second attack killed several additional Taliban
officials, including the former Taliban head of police of the province,
Safiullah Samim <[link removed]>. These twin attacks
were a major propaganda success for ISIS-K, which once again exploited this
terrorist violence to claim that the Taliban cannot provide security in the
country, even to high-ranking officials. In addition, a new report by the
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) released at the end of
June demonstrated that at least3,774 Afghan civilians
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were killed in terrorist attacks between August 2021 and May 2023. According
to UNAMA, the majority of these attacks were perpetrated by ISIS-K using
improvised explosive devices (IEDs). However, the ongoing efforts of the
Taliban to control ISIS-K in Afghanistan are also reflected in ISIS-K-linked
propaganda, which for the first time, emphasized in several posts that the
Taliban had not destroyed the group’s ability to operate, including the
publication of an infographic of the Taliban officials ISIS-K had killed. Until
now, despite ongoing Taliban operations against ISIS-K cells in the country,
ISIS-K-linked propaganda did not see the need to clarify this.



However, in June, it became clear that ISIS-K continues to also plan terror
attacks outside the region, particularly in Europe. In 2020 agroup of Central
Asians
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was arrested in Germany, who were, according to German government authorities,
instructed by leaders of the Islamic State in Syria and Afghanistan to prepare
terror attacks against US military installations in Germany. At the beginning of
July 2023
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, another group of Central Asians was arrested in Germany and the Netherlands.
This group had entered Germany from Ukraine, posing as refugees shortly after
the Russian re-invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. ISIS-K had instructed and
guided the group, which was in the process of selecting potential targets for
terror attacks in Germany and had begun procuring weapons to this effect. The
arrest of this cell demonstrates that ISIS-K continues to focus on attacking
Western targets outside the Afghan region.



In addition to its fight against ISIS-K, the Taliban have continued their
campaign against the National Resistance Front (NRF) in Afghanistan. The NRF
maintains very few forces focused on the Panjshir Valley of Afghanistan. These
forces do not currently seem to be a significant factor in Afghanistan.
Nevertheless, according to Amnesty International’slatest report
<[link removed]> in June, the Taliban
are waging a brutal campaign, including arrests, torture, and the killing of
civilians, against the NRF in Panjshir. This demonstrates the ruthlessness of
the Taliban regime against its opponents. In contrast, despitenumerous calls by
Pakistan
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on the Taliban to curb the ability of terror groups allied with the Taliban
regime, chiefly theTehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)
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conduct cross-border attacks in Pakistan, the Taliban seem to have done little
to get the issue under control. Notably, pro-ISIS-K propaganda outlets seem to
have picked up on the news that the Taliban plannedto transfer some TTP fighters

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to the North of the country in an apparent move toplacate Pakistani demands
<[link removed]>. However, so far, there is no
independent confirmation that this Taliban announcement was enacted. Indeed it
is unclear if such a resettlement move would not significantlydisturb the
ethnic balance <[link removed]> in the North of
Afghanistan, predominantly settled not by Pashtuns, the coethnics of TTP
fighters, but by Afghans of Tajik and Uzbek origins.



Regarding the Afghan illegal drug economy, several international
<[link removed]> media
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reports have outlined Taliban moves against poppy fields in Nangarhar,
Kandahar, and Helmand provinces. These are three of the key poppy-growing areas
in the country. However, these reports seem to miss the parallel increase in
methamphetamine production in Afghanistan, which has already led to a
significant deterioration of the methamphetamine epidemicin neighboring Iran
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as well as increased seizures in theIndian Ocean
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as well asIndia
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. Methamphetamine, a synthetic drug, only requires a laboratory for its
production. Theephedra plant
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, a natural source of ephedrine, is available in Afghanistan, overcoming the
usual curb on methamphetamine production that the tight international controls
on ephedrine present. Therefore, a shift from an emphasis on the production of
poppy-based opiates to laboratory-based, and therefore harder to detect,
methamphetamine production allows the Taliban to demonstrate to international
observers that they are controlling the illicit drugs market while concurrently
significantly increasing their profits from this illegal economy in the
country. As expected, pro-ISIS-K propaganda reacted to this international
discussion and claimed in June that despite reports, drug production in
Afghanistan continued more or less uninterrupted.



Finally, pro-ISIS-K propaganda outlets once again addressed the issue of
official Taliban Twitter accounts, claiming that the Taliban were allowed to
maintain these accounts after the social media platform had checked them. In
January 2023,international media reports
<[link removed]> highlighted that the Taliban, a
U.S.-sanctioned entity <[link removed]>, purchased
blue check marks from Twitter. Interestingly at the beginning of July 2023,
Anas Haqqani, the brother of the interior minister of the Taliban regime,
Sirajuddin Haqqani
<[link removed]>, praised
Twitter’s decision
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to allow the Taliban access to the platform. Anas Haqqani is part of the
leadership of theHaqqani Network
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Republic of Afghanistan in 2014. In 2019, he was released in exchange for
American and Australian hostages
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of the Haqqani Network. He subsequently became one of the interlocutors for
the Taliban during thenegotiations of the Doha Agreement
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statement praising Twitter, Anas Haqqani, as expected, did not elaborate on how
the Taliban aretransferring payments
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for the verification check marks to the U.S.-based company.

Click Here For More CEP Analysis
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