"Furious mullahs" infiltrate post-soviet space with potential terrorists.
Author: Andrey Serenko, special correspondent for Nezavisimaya Gazeta
The Taliban (a terrorist organization banned in Russia) intelligence service and Al-Qaeda (a terrorist organization banned in Russia) operatives have been using Islamic State (ISIL, a terrorist organization banned in Russia) supporters recruited in Russia and other post-Soviet republics for about a year now. As a result of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda's fake underground structures operating under the flag of the Islamic State, dozens, if not hundreds of supporters of the "caliphate" from among citizens of Tajikistan and other Central Asian states have been brought to Afghanistan or remain in "sleep" mode in Russia and other post-Soviet countries. The Taliban and Al-Qaeda intelligence services use militants recruited on behalf of the fake ISIS both for propaganda purposes and to prepare terrorist attacks "under a false flag."
Jihadist terrorist groups based in Afghanistan are increasingly creative in their work, including in terms of competing with each other for more advantageous positions in the region. As it became known from reliable sources, about a year ago, a special department was created in the Main Intelligence Directorate (MID) of the Taliban. It began conducting a kind of analog of the well-known KGB operation "Trust" in Russia. Let us recall that in the 1920s, Soviet state security agencies created a fake underground organization, allegedly acting on behalf of the monarchists who remained in the USSR. On behalf of this organization, the Chekists contacted the real leaders of the white emigration, as a result of which they not only received the necessary information about the anti-Soviet movement and its plans but were also able to lure some prominent opponents of the Soviet regime to the territory of the USSR and then eliminate them.
Something similar in technological terms is being implemented today by Taliban intelligence operatives. At the very end of 2023, a special department created in the Taliban's MID began recruiting potential terrorist fighters on behalf of the terrorist organization Vilayat Khorasan, banned in the Russian Federation, the Afghan branch of the Islamic State, ready to wage jihad for the sake of creating a worldwide "caliphate". The main target of the fake ISIS recruiters were labor migrants from Tajikistan and other Central Asian republics who had gone to work in Russia.
The first "catch" of gullible ISIS sympathizers from among the Tajik migrant workers who had gone to work in Russian cities was received by the Taliban MID operatives in January and February 2024. Several dozen citizens of Tajikistan, as well as people from other Central Asian states, took the bait of recruiting offers from Taliban spies posing as jihadists of the "Islamic State". According to Afghan sources, from the end of 2023 to the beginning of spring 2024, the special department of the Taliban MID conducted at least three waves of recruitment campaigns on behalf of ISIS through specially created recruitment networks. All of them were targeted and aimed at finding and recruiting "agent material" of two types. The first are those who can be further used to carry out terrorist operations on behalf of the "Islamic State", including those outside Afghanistan. The second are characters who are of no interest to the Taliban's MID and are only suitable for the implementation of propaganda activities designed to demonstrate to regional, global, and Afghan public opinion the effectiveness of the Taliban in the fight against the threat of ISIS.
Sources report dozens of cases of successful recruitment of Tajik citizens by Taliban MID residencies in Turkey on behalf of the fake IS. At the same time, the recruited Tajik migrant workers were physically located on Russian territory: Taliban intelligence officers contacted them and controlled their actions via Telegram. It was through transit through Turkish airports that the new "mujahideen of the caliphate" recruited by the false IS flew from Russia to Afghanistan, where they fell under closer surveillance by the Taliban MID. At the same time, the recruits recruited under a false flag were sure that they had entered the IS "family" and were receiving orders from the commanders of "Vilayat Khorasan".
It is curious, of course, how and where exactly the Tajik and other supporters of the "Islamic State" recruited by the special department of the Taliban intelligence received visas to enter Afghanistan. This could only have happened either in the Taliban embassy in Moscow or a similar institution in Turkey. It will probably be important for the Russian and Turkish intelligence services to clarify this issue since we are talking about identifying the routes of movement of potential terrorist fighters of the Islamic State. Yes, these characters were recruited by fake structures created by another terrorist group, but the recruits themselves were ready to fight and die for the cause of the "caliphate". And in this sense, they pose an undoubted threat to the national security of Russia, Tajikistan, and Turkey.
After arriving in Afghanistan, the Taliban's special department of the MID conducts selection work with recruits of the fake IS. Those who are of no value to Taliban intelligence are sent to prison. Later, they are either presented to the media alive - as foreign IS fighters detained as part of the Taliban's successful fight against the Islamic State, or dead - as a result of a staged "special operation to eliminate" an IS cell in Kabul or another part of the country.
It should be noted that not all of the “new ISIS jihadists” recruited under a false flag travel to Afghanistan. Some of them remain in “sleep” mode in Russia, Turkey, and post-Soviet states, continuing to receive orders from Taliban operatives who adhere to the ISIS “legend.” One can only guess what these orders might be, which will then be attributed to ISIS.
