Months ago, the UN warned: Like flies to carrion, jihadists from around the world were flocking to Afghanistan as a consequence of the US capitulation. From all over Central Asia and beyond. undocs.org/en/S/2021/486 As in Af'stan in the 1980s, and Syria this past decade. 1/5
The arrivals were Taliban affiliates, Al Qaida, and the Taliban IS splinter group behind today atrocities in Kabul. There is no unified Taliban command. It's all about shifting allegiances, splits, coalescence, re-mergers and opportunism. 2/5
It's not just the Pakistani ISI. Mullah Omar's successor as Taliban emir, Mullah Mansour, operated openly in Quetta, a short drive across the border from Kandahar. But when he was killed in a drone strike in 2016, he was returning from a meeting with Russians & IRGC in Iran. 3/5
The IS - K behind today's attack are Afghan Taliban who flourished in Pakistan with Baitullah Mehsoud's Tehrik-e-Taliban alliance, then went back across the border as Talibs aligned with ISIS bigshot al-Baghdadi. But they're al the same people. 4/5
They all know one another, marry one another's daughters, assassinate one another, then reconcile. The thing to keep your eye on: Wherever a carcass-strewn patch of ground is allowed to fallow, they'll be there. Like flies to carrion. Afghanistan is the Empire of Graveyards. 5/5.
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