Kabul attack

The latest attack in Afghanistan – a suicide bombing by the Islamic State at a voter registration centre in Kabul on Sunday that killed 57 people – shows how militant groups are trying to destabilise the country’s weak democracy. This is the fourth attack on such centres since voter registration for October’s parliamentary elections began last week. The aim of the Islamic State and groups of its ilk is to scare the people of Afghanistan into staying away from polls, further weakening the government and striking at the legitimacy of democracy. That the suicide attack took place in the Dashte Barchi area of Kabul where the population is majority Shia is unlikely to be a coincidence. Most of the victims were Hazara Shias, who have been singled out for attacks by militant groups in the past too. The Islamic State has made a habit of going after minority groups, particularly Shias. A day after the IS attack, the Taliban killed 14 soldiers and police officers in the western Baghdis province. Taken together, the two attacks show the different kind of threats posed by the two main militant groups in Afghanistan. The IS aims to spread fear among the Afghan population, choosing targets which will inflict maximum civilian casualties. The Taliban, on the other hand, goes after the state, hoping to weaken the government and law enforcement as it tries to gain control of more territory.

The IS has made it an explicit goal to eliminate all Shias from Afghanistan. This is a country where sectarian tensions have been relatively muted in the past but the relentless onslaught of IS attacks could change that. Most of its fighters are foreign, recruited from the ranks of the TTP and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan after they were expelled from Pakistan. Despite being an essentially foreign force, in the last couple of years it has been able to expand from Nangarhar province in the east to much of the north and northeast of the country. The challenge for the government is to eliminate this militant group. Some outside countries – Russia in particular – have talked to the Afghan Taliban in the hope of joining it to defeat the IS. Since the Taliban and IS are implacably opposed to each other, there is a line of thinking that believes that the Taliban should be used to defeat this even deadlier threat. The problem for the Afghan government though is that the Taliban continues to target it, making even a partnership of convenience impossible. There are no good options available here to the government but it must formulate a plan of action soon, before it is weakened even further.