Taliban Turning Afghanistan into Terrorism Stronghold

Establishing a religious school by the Taliban, using the religious arguments and pretext in Panjshir is a very dangerous endeavor. This attempt is apparently made in line with the long-term strategy of promoting international terrorism to infiltrate strategic areas.

Its danger lies in the fact that under the pretext of a religious school, the ground for creating strong bases for al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups to infiltrate the population of this region is favorable. In the long run, cleaning these elements from the area will be very difficult and people’s resistance to cleaning will face serious difficulties.

The importance of Panjshir for the internal and external fighting power in Afghanistan was highlighted in the 1980s when the successive attacks of the Red Army failed. In the 1990s, al-Qaeda made extensive efforts to dominate Panjshir and in this way, in addition to the Taliban forces, it also used Chechen, Uzbek, Arab and other foreign fighters. The prediction of al-Qaeda experts was that with the planned operation on World Trade Centers in September 11, 2001, the group would face very serious reactions and possible attacks by U.S. which turned true, but having strong bases in the mountains of Tora bora, Panjshir, Khost and several other strategic points, America as the Soviet Union will face failure. Al-Qaeda’s plan was to assassinate Massoud some time before September 11, so that there would be enough time to place their (Taliban and Al-Qaeda) forces before the American attacks; But Massoud’s procrastination in meeting with Al-Qaeda terrorists caused the delay and time symmetry of these two incidents.

Osama bin Laden’s activities to create impregnable bases in the mountains inside Afghanistan and the border areas with Pakistan were part of the strategy of al-Qaeda and its allies to implement the larger plans of this group in the region and the world. Since the mid-1980s, they considered areas in Afghanistan to be effective for their long-term goals and international operations. The tunnels recently shown to the media by the Haqqani group are part of the same strategy that was built jointly with bin Laden and its effectiveness was proven both in the war with the Russians and during the American attacks. Torra Bora caves complex were another part of this strategic plan that saved bin Laden’s life and part of al-Qaeda’s forces from death in the most difficult conditions. The only side of this strategy that was not realized until now was the conquest of Panjshir; And now, with the domination of Panjshir by Taliban, the path has been paved to implement the remaining portion of building save heavens for training and camping the terrorists.

The establishment a terrorist training camp with the capacity of a thousand students in Panjshir, using the religious pretext has no other goals rather than turning the province into a strong base of terrorist for future strategic utilization. , despite the existence of enough local schools to train mosque imams, building and establishing such a school is neither needed nor is reasonable, but to fulfill other goals. Using the religion pretext covers and answers the matters of sensitivity in a traditional society like Afghanistan. In the last 20 years, a creeping program was going on all over Afghanistan to create schools with extreme Salafist and Deobandi ideas along with the traditional schools of the past. These schools facilitated recruitment for the Taliban and other terrorist groups, and the students of a number of these schools in Baghlan, Farah, Herat, Nangarhar and other provinces actually participated in the fights against the Kabul administration during the course of the last two decades. If the desired by the Taliban is established and activated in Panjshir, this strategic area will become one of the strongest centers of terrorism in the world, and its disastrous consequences will not only affect Afghanistan; the region and the world will have to tolerate the negative consequences and terrorists being produced out of this center.