Small Wars Journal

How IS Has Been Making Enemies in Afghanistan

Sun, 02/21/2016 - 12:08pm

How IS Has Been Making Enemies in Afghanistan  - BBC

… No Afghan will be surprised that Kunar was one of the first places where IS - or Da'esh as we call it - appeared. The region has always had a reputation for being difficult to control.

There are lots of different tribal groups but they all tend to ignore the government in Kabul, whoever is in charge. Neither the Americans or the Taliban ever really held sway.

We pride ourselves on our warrior traditions. My own father was a jihadi, who fought with the mujahideen against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and I'm proud my dad fought for his country. One of the things that persuaded him to do this was religion - he hated the fact that foreign atheists had taken over our country.

He wasn't the only one - lots of the leaders of Afghanistan's government are also former mujahideen. But our religious traditions in Kunar are a bit different from those in the rest of the country.

Most Afghans follow the Hanifi tradition of Islam but around here many of us grew up in the Wahhabi tradition - a very orthodox, hardline form of Islam, which teaches that people should try to live as the first Muslims did...

Read on.