The Taliban’s intelligence chief said Thursday that some countries were dispatching ISIS fighters to Afghanistan to destabilise the country. He warned that the international community would pay a “heavy price” if it ignored the threat.
Abdul Haq Wasiq, head of the Taliban’s intelligence agency, told Al Jazeera that ISIS no longer had a real base in Afghanistan and controlled no territory. He said recent attacks carried out inside the country or in the region had been planned from abroad.
Taliban officials have repeatedly accused Pakistan of harbouring ISIS in its Balochistan province, though Islamabad argues that Afghanistan under Taliban control has become a hub for militant groups including Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and ISIS-Khorasan. Relations between the two sides have soured amid cross-border militant attacks.
Wasiq dismissed reports of fighters being transferred from Syria to Afghanistan as fabrications by intelligence agencies. He said such claims were intended to create mistrust, erode confidence and damage the Taliban’s political and security engagement on the international stage.
He maintained that Afghanistan was itself a victim of terrorism, alleging that militant groups maintained training camps abroad, purchased weapons on the black market and sent fighters to create instability inside the country. Wasiq warned that if regional and global powers remained indifferent or applied double standards to the issue, they would all face serious consequences in the future.
He rejected reports of intelligence cooperation with the United States, saying the Taliban had no partnership or formal agreement with any foreign power.
Wasiq also claimed that the Taliban’s intelligence agency had been “cleansed,” and that arbitrary arrests, torture and intimidation of civilians had ended. He argued that ISIS had become a tool of certain foreign intelligence services, and that some countries, by exaggerating the group’s presence and ignoring the transfer of fighters and funds, were inadvertently contributing to its growth.
His remarks came as international organisations continued to warn of militant activity inside Afghanistan. Pakistan has estimated that some 6,000 TTP fighters are present in the country, while Russia has raised concerns about militants arriving from Syria. The United Nations has also reported that al-Qaida has re-established itself in Afghanistan with several bases.