New attacks in Kabul and the security challenge for the Taliban

On Friday 30 September, in Dasht-e Barchi, a district located in West Kabul, an assailant killed 53 people and injured 110 others (according to UNAMA data). The man entered a classroom in the Kaaj education center, at that time crowded by 600 students engaged in a university entrance exam, and detonated the bomb. Although the attack has not been claimed yet, the choice of the target is of interest for two reasons: Kaaj center is one of the few institutions left that provides education to girls - 46 of them are among the victims - and is in an area with a strong ethnic Hazara presence and of Shiite majority. Since the Taliban’s rise in government, the Afghan women’s education dossier has informed the international public debate. While primary education is provided for children, no public institution teaches girls anymore and the only few centers that continue to do so are private, like the one in Dasht-e Barchi, who teaches boys and girls. The significance of targeting female students can be twofold: on the one hand, undermining the Taliban’s legitimacy in its ability to provide security to the few remaining forms of female education, and on the other, preventing their access to school. The Hazara community, which includes many students who attend the Kaaj institute, is a frequent target for the Islamic State’s militants: the same Dasht-e Barchi area has witnessed, in recent years, numerous ISKP attacks on schools and on the Shiite community. The Islamic State of Khorasan Province, the Central Asian branch of the IS, has in fact proliferated in the last two years, finding fertile ground within the insecurity generated by the withdrawal of the International Forces, placing itself as the main antagonist of the new Taliban government in Afghanistan, politically still unstable. The Global Terrorism Index attributes, among the 1436 victims of terrorist attacks in 2021, 518 deaths to ISKP attacks; in addition, the number of units estimated among the ranks of its militants is constantly growing. Their actions openly challenge the Taliban, who find in the security agenda one of the test beds for the future stability of their government. Prevention of terrorist attacks and the internal security of the country are one of the few points that could stabilize the social contract between the Islamic Emirate and most of the population, a security that is now poorly guaranteed, as exemplified by the suicide attack led at the Ministry of the Interior on the afternoon of October 5. The explosion in the mosque in the vicinity of the structure has wounded and killed several ministerial employees (now 4 dead and 25 injured) and clarifies the country’s current exposure to the attacks: the event, which has not been claimed yet, struck the government apparatus responsible for security and law enforcement. Therefore, although neither of the two attacks has yet been claimed, the frequency of these incidents and the diversification of targets reveals the substantial inability of the Taliban leaders in power to guarantee security not only to the population, but also to their own institutions. The open game with the anti-taliban front, consisting of both IS-K and a myriad of militant groups, could therefore constitute an element of progressive erosion of the internal legitimacy of the current government, or, if a strategy can be found to deal with the threat, an opportunity for the Taliban to o diminish citizenry’s dissatisfaction.