Afghan security forces inspected the site of a suicide attack after clashes with Taliban fighters at the gate of an intelligence center in Kabul, Afghanistan, on July 7. Credit Rahmat Gul/Associated Press.
KABUL, Afghanistan — The American military has intensified its airstrikes in Afghanistan in recent weeks, expanding them to include a bombing campaign against Islamic State militants who defeated the Taliban in fighting over a sliver of territory in the eastern part of the country.
Throughout June, American drones and warplanes fired against militants in Afghanistan more than twice as much as they had in any previous month this year, according to military statistics.
The
increase in the use of American air power comes more than six months
after President Obama declared that the American combat mission in
Afghanistan had ended. The vast majority of the strikes appear to remain
focused on Taliban
forces, the traditional targets of American airstrikes here for more
than a decade. But several have targeted insurgent commanders who
defected from the Taliban to swear allegiance to the Islamic State, also
known as ISIS or ISIL.
American
officials have said that the strikes against the Islamic State were
part of a defensive policy to protect the coalition forces from harm.
But Afghan officials said the strikes against Islamic State targets came
partly at the urging of the Afghan domestic intelligence service, which
thought it was time to remove them or risk the Islamic State’s gaining a
foothold in eastern Afghanistan.
“We
needed to take action,” said one Afghan official who has been briefed
on some of the intelligence that preceded the strikes. “The willingness
on the part of the Americans to provide the air support is always
there.”
American
military officials had played down the Islamic State’s activity, but it
flared quickly in the eastern Nangarhar Province in the late spring.
Since
then, American missiles have struck two large-scale gatherings of
Islamic State fighters in the province, killing top commanders.
“The
department anticipated a summer uptick in insurgent activity, and we
were prepared to protect our forces,” said a Pentagon spokeswoman,
Henrietta Levin, accounting for the increase in airstrikes. She added,
though, that the United States was closely monitoring the growth of the
Islamic State in Afghanistan to see if it has a “meaningful impact.”
The
pace of airstrikes presents a wild card in the tentative discussions
between the Afghan government and the Taliban’s leadership over the
possibility of peace negotiations.
The
airstrikes could undermine the Taliban’s willingness to negotiate with
the Afghan government and could indirectly strengthen the group’s
legitimacy to an Afghan public that widely loathes the American
airstrikes. Or, the airstrikes might give the Afghan government more
leverage in negotiations.
In a statement released on Wednesday, which was said to come from the Taliban’s long-reclusive supreme leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban gave their blessing to exploring peace negotiations “concurrently with armed jihad.”
The
Taliban reiterated their demand that foreign troops leave Afghanistan,
in particular the country’s airspace. Mullah Omar’s statement emphasized
that jihad remained an obligation because Afghanistan’s “land and
airspace are controlled by the invaders.”
After
years of taking a heavy toll on the insurgency, the recent expansion to
target Islamic State forces has become a benefit for the Taliban in
parts of Nangarhar. Insurgents with the Taliban and other groups there
had lost considerable ground to the upstart cells of Islamic militants.
Still, the largest share of the strikes continues to focus on the
Taliban, according to interviews and local news reports. Others have
targeted Pakistani militants who fled into eastern Afghanistan to escape
a Pakistani military offensive.
Though the number of strikes in June reached a high point for 2015, it still represented an overall decrease
from previous years. The 106 weapons fired this June were less than
half the 272 fired in June 2014. In June 2011, the figure was 610
weapons fired.
Two
senior Afghan officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to
discuss intelligence matters, suggested that part of the new surge in
airstrikes was linked to improved targeting information from the Afghan
spy service, the National Directorate of Security. One official said,
“Coordination and intelligence sharing with the Americans has increased
in recent months,” particularly in Nangarhar.
In
one recent strike, the Afghan intelligence service claimed to have
tracked Hafiz Saeed Khan, the Islamic State’s chief for Khorasan, an old
name for a region that includes Afghanistan and Pakistan, to a recent
meeting of militant leaders.
“He
was trying to escape in a vehicle after the first hit,” another Afghan
official said. “There were six hits total, and we believe the fifth
killed him.” Some social media accounts associated with the Islamic
State, however, deny that Mr. Khan is dead.
The
Islamic State’s momentum in Nangarhar has not been replicated elsewhere
in Afghanistan, where the organization has been thwarted by the Taliban
or is still in the recruitment phase. But in Nangarhar, over the course
of at least two dozen skirmishes with the Taliban, the Islamic State
emerged as the dominant presence in several districts.
In
one district, the Islamic State fighters went door to door, having
first “wrapped their faces with scarves,” and told villagers with ties
to the Taliban to leave, Akram Haji, a resident, said. In some areas,
the removal applied to almost everyone, since many families have a son
or father who has fought for the Taliban or supported them.
“They offered us the choice of following their principles and joining the Islamic State or leaving,” another resident said.
Some
residents recognized the new fighters as local residents or as men from
surrounding districts. Others said the Islamic State’s ranks had
swelled with Pakistani fighters.
The
Islamic State imposed a few new rules in areas it controlled, including
a ban on naswar, a style of smokeless tobacco. But many residents said
the differences between the rival groups were hard to discern.
“It’s
challenging to judge which one is really struggling for Islam,” said
Mohammad Wazir, a farmer from Sherzad District, whose village was seized
by Islamic State militants.
Mr.
Wazir was interviewed in Rodat District, not far from his home, where
many families that had lived in territory now held by the Islamic State
have resettled.
The effect of the airstrikes on the Islamic State’s position in Afghanistan remains to be seen.
A
member of Parliament from Nangarhar, Ismatullah Shinwari, described the
drone strikes as “tremendously effective” and said that without them,
he feared that the Islamic State might have grown strong enough to have
“taken control of the capital of Nangarhar,” Jalalabad, an important
Afghan city.
In
public statements, as well as in a letter addressed to the Islamic
State’s self-declared caliph, Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Taliban have
warned the Islamic State to stay out of Afghanistan.
In the most recent issue of Dabiq,
the Islamic State’s online English-language magazine, the group derided
Mullah Omar as a minor leader lacking global vision. It said Mullah
Omar “was at most one day a former leader of one of the Islamic lands,”
and possibly dead. Mullah Omar has not been seen in public in years.
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