Radical Islamists: What divides the Taliban, IS and Al Qaeda

The Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan draws attention to other radical Islamic groups such as Al Qaeda and the “Islamic State”. Are there common roots, what connects – and what separates them?

The Taliban, Al Qaeda and the “Islamic State” have one element in common – the fundamental rejection of Western values. They firmly reject a democratic order in which women and men have equal rights and determine the composition of a parliament by election according to secular and secular rules.

According to their understanding, the sole basis of political action, social life and economic activity must be Sharia law – so-called Islamic law. The most important sources of the Sharia are the Koran and the collection of traditional sayings of the Prophet Mohammed.

The interpretation of these sources by legal scholars and ideologues of these terrorist groups is shaped by the view that Islamic societies are victims of Western intrigue and oppression. The struggle against Western influence in Islamic countries is a religious duty for the religiously disguised extremists.

Different battle zones

There are clear differences between the three terrorist organizations in terms of their composition and the combat zones.

The Taliban are limited to Afghanistan and border areas in Pakistan. They first appeared in 1984. The movement has its origins in Koran schools called madrasa in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar. The schools of the Taliban are part of the so-called Deobandi movement, which represents a strictly orthodox, anti-Western teaching.

In 1994 the Taliban first made a name for themselves as an armed militia. Financed from Saudi sources, supported by the American CIA and equipped with tanks, vehicles and heavy weapons supplied by Pakistan, they begin an unprecedented triumphal march. Numerous militias of the various ethnic groups of Afghanistan competing for power in the country are defeated or join them without a fight. On September 26, 1996, the Taliban captured Kabul and proclaimed an Islamic state based on Sharia law.

When the United States was little concerned

At this point in time, Washington is less concerned than sympathetic to the goings-on in the Taliban. For a possible pacification of the country by a victorious warring party holds out the prospect of American oil companies building pipelines from Central Asia through Afghanistan to Pakistan on the Indian Ocean and making ample profit. The break with Washington occurred in the late 1990s because the Taliban leadership stubbornly refused to extradite Osama bin Laden to the United States.

At that time, Washington accused bin Laden of being the head of the terrorist organization Al Qaeda responsible for serious attacks against US targets.

Al Qaeda – terror without roots

Bin Laden, who comes from a wealthy Saudi family and had already supported the struggle of Islamist mujahideen against the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan, founded the Al Qaeda terror network (the base) together with like-minded comrades in Peshawar, Pakistan in 1988.

In contrast to the Taliban movement, which is mostly backed by Pashtuns, al Qaeda has no anchoring in the population of a country. Al Qaeda started out as a collection of educated cadres and Arab mercenaries who fought against the Soviet army in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Terror group becomes a network

According to their own admission, their struggle is against the enemies of God, who after Moscow’s withdrawal from the Hindu Kush include the United States as well as the Arab leaderships allied with Washington and Israel. Al Qaeda is developing into an international network that finds supporters in Arab, West African and Southeast Asian countries and sets up offshoots.

The ideological basis is essentially the writings of the Islamist Sayyid Qutb, who was executed in Egypt in 1966. For Qutb every secular form of government is a blasphemous presumption. Al-Qaeda terrorists are carrying out attacks around the world with tens of thousands dead in order to initiate a revolution in the sense of Qutb for the realization of the rule of God on earth.

An offshoot causes horror

The terrorist militia “Islamic State” (IS) is striving to do the same. It emerged from an offshoot of al Qaeda in Iraq. IS is by far the most brutal terrorist organization these days. They are responsible for mass murders, enslavements, public beheadings, burns and executions.

The majority of IS supporters are Sunni Muslims. From 2014 onwards, ISIS succeeded in bringing large areas under its control in Iraq and northern Syria and establishing a so-called caliphate in which an unprecedented reign of terror is being established in the name of Sharia.

The terrorist militia of the so-called Islamic State is attracting supporters from numerous countries, including a large number of people from Europe, even more than the Al Qaeda terrorist network before. Thanks to a coalition of many states that fought together against the terrorist militia, and thanks to the high blood toll of fighting Kurds, the IS caliphate was smashed.

Back again and still there

In recent weeks in Afghanistan they have impressively shown how strong the Pakistan-backed Taliban are. How active al Qaeda still is with its offshoots is a mystery to numerous experts.

On the other hand, many observers agree that cells and groups of the IS terrorist militia continue to pose a very serious threat in Syria and Iraq. And the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan is fueling another concern: that the country will again become a magnet for extremists – who from there destabilize other countries.