The Northwest Frontier is, as usual, restless...
Five years since seizing power in Afghanistan, internal tensions test the Taliban’s vulnerabilities
Localized disputes and attacks by opposition groups have been driving an increase in political violence in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan and Herat provinces.
The Taliban’s control over Afghanistan’s internal security situation is near-complete, but an escalation in violence in Badakhshan and Herat provinces this year highlights the regime’s vulnerabilities. In the country’s ethnically mixed border provinces toward the north and west, internal divisions and deepening discontent with the Taliban’s centralized command offer opportunities to armed opposition groups and the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) to test the limits of the Taliban’s control.
No sustained challenge to the Taliban’s authority is expected in the short to medium term, as armed opposition groups neither have the momentum nor the capacity to mount a serious challenge, and the ISKP has been weakened through sustained pressure. Border provinces with dynamics similar to those of Badakhshan and Herat, however, face a heightened risk of localized unrest.
Localized disputes and attacks by opposition groups have been driving an increase in political violence in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan and Herat provinces.
acleddata.com