Just days before the deadly attack in Kabul, senior Israeli defense officials warned that the release of thousands of Islamic State fighters from prisons in Afghanistan by the Taliban is a concern for Israel and the region.
On Thursday some 90 people, including over a dozen American Marines, were killed in a complex attack on Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport claimed by IS Khorasan Province (ISKP).
Videos shared on social media from the scene showed dozens of bodies in the sewage canal outside the airport.
It was the deadliest US casualty event in the country since 2011 when a Chinook helicopter carrying NATO and Afghan security forces was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired by a Taliban fighter. Thirty-eight people were killed in the attack, including 22 US Special Forces.
The attack on Thursday came following warnings by defense officials about an increased terror threat from the group, especially near the airport.
A senior Israeli defense official told The Jerusalem Post that the fighters who had been released could make their way to the Middle East, including Egypt’s restive Sinai Peninsula and carry out attacks.
ISKP has been active in Afghanistan since it was founded by Pakistani national Hafiz Saeed Khan, a veteran Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander in 2014 and was officially accepted by the terror group’s core in 2015.
At ISIS’s height of power, it expanded all over the world including in Libya and Egypt, but ISKP was one of the more successful franchises with at least 2,000 fighters who have carried out numerous attacks over the years including a May 2020 attack targeting a maternity hospital in Kabul that killed 24 people including newborns.
ISKP and the Taliban are sworn enemies and have been fighting each other for years and it could be that ISKP carried out the attack on Kabul airport in an attempt to humiliate the Taliban following their reconquest of the country.
But, the senior official warned, in addition to the thousands of newly released ISKP fighters, the flood of advanced weapons falling into the hands of the Taliban is also a concern for Israel since they can end up in the hands of terror groups along the country’s northern and southern borders.
The amount of advanced American weaponry, such as armored Humvees, aircraft, drones and other weapons abandoned by the defeated US-equipped Afghan National Defense and Security Forces is still unclear, and though some might never be used – like aircraft or helicopters due to a lack of trained crews – they can be sold to other countries or groups.
That list of potential customers is far from short and the Taliban also has the capability to smuggle them from the land-locked country to the Middle East and beyond.
The Haqqani network is one of the most powerful and feared players in the country and would be instrumental in the smuggling of American weaponry should the Taliban choose to sell the tons of arms it got its hands on during their reconquest of Afghanistan.
Formed by Jalaluddin Haqqani in the 1980s, the network is known for their ruthlessness and has been funneling arms and money for close to 40 years. With the Taliban overrunning the country, Khalil al-Rahman Haqqani was reportedly tasked with overseeing security in the capital.
According to a report in al-Jazeera, there are 12.5 million afghanis ($159,600) worth of gold bars and silver coins held inside Afghanistan’s presidential palace vault and another $362mil in foreign currency (mostly USD) in the country’s banks and presidential palace.
That’s far from what the country needs to function and the smuggling of weapons, especially to other terror groups like Hamas or Iranian-backed militias in Syria like the Fatemiyoun Brigade, would bring the Taliban a huge increase in revenue for the group which is ruling over one of the poorer countries in the world.
“They just came into possession of a state of the art national arsenal” and “everything is going to find its way here,” former Israeli ambassador to the United States and member of Knesset Michael Oren told The Jerusalem Post.
“The weapons can go to Jordan and further destabilize the Kingdom or to the Sinai... it will reverberate across the region,” he said, adding that “it can have an immediate impact.”
According to Oren, while the Taliban might not have many people who can fly helicopters, “they can also be sold.” And former Afghan National Security Forces soldiers “can also trade their lives for instruction,” he said.
Hamas has used the chaos of civil wars before, smuggling weapons including anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles from Libya during its civil war in 2011 to the blockaded Gaza Strip.
According to a February report by The Times (UK), Hamas “diverted arms intended for Libyan battlefields through Egypt and used middlemen and Hamas militants in Turkey and Qatar to circumvent” Israel’s blockade. The report named Marwan al-Ashqar as the Hamas operative who ran the smuggling group.
“It took exactly one week for shoulder-fired missiles to get to Gaza from Libya,” Oren said.
Though Hamas has its own military industry, giving the group the ability to manufacture thousands of missiles and other weapons locally, the group has gloated about its ability to smuggle weapons into the Strip to use against Israel.
And as Afghanistan borders Iran, weapon systems can also easily make their way to Syria and be used against Israel by Iranian-backed Shiite militias or even Hezbollah.
Just like officials warned of a terror attack in Kabul, Israeli officials hope that the warning of such a massive arsenal sparking a regional arms fair for other terror groups won’t fall on deaf ears.
“We know the stuff they have and there's no self-destruct button on them,” Oren said, adding that he doesn’t “know how you can get ahead” of the smuggling.
And that is exactly why the issue of weapon smuggling and IS fighters “has to be paid attention by everyone, every country that stands up to IS and al Qaeda and Hamas,” Oren said.