ISIS' growing influence unsettling in Afghanistan

DEH BALA, Afghanistan -- Two years ago, Pentagon officials said that U.S. forces in the remote reaches of Afghanistan could defeat the Islamic State's offshoot by the end of 2017.

This month, U.S. Special Forces in eastern Afghanistan were still fighting, with no end in sight.

During a visit by a New York Times reporter to their dusty Army outpost, in the eastern province of Nangarhar, the Americans pointed out the ridges and valleys at the foot of the snow-capped Spin Ghar mountains: There, they noted, was the start of the Islamic State's territory, in some of the most forbidding terrain in Afghanistan.

The extremist group is growing, able to out-recruit its casualties so far, according to military officials. It is well-funded by illicit smuggling and other revenue streams. And in the eastern part of the country, Islamic State fighters are waging a war of terrain that the U.S. military can -- for now -- only contain, those officials said.

Interviews with six current and former U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, indicated that the group is poised to expand its influence if the United States and the Taliban reach a peace settlement. The officials expressed concern that in addition to destabilizing the Afghan government, the group is becoming connected to terrorist plots beyond Afghanistan's borders.

Deep in Afghanistan, the immediate conclusion has been to try to keep up the pressure through patrols and raids by U.S. and Afghan special operations units. But the officials acknowledge that it all amounts to more of a containment effort than anything that could eradicate the Islamic State loyalists there.

Mission Support Site Jones, on the outskirts of the small village of Deh Bala, is part of the small constellation of Special Forces outposts in Nangarhar.

The Special Forces units are falling back on a counterinsurgency strategy that has been used off and on throughout 18 years of war. That means they are juggling between clearing territory alongside Afghan troops, trying to hold it, and building an Afghan force that could take over security for the district when the Americans eventually leave.

What began in 2015 as a small group of tribes composed mostly of former Pakistani Taliban fighters who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, soon grew into a loosely connected web of fighters and commanders spread throughout the country.

According to U.S. military officials, fighters gradually appeared from all over the region, including Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, as well as a trickle of fighters who had fought in Iraq and Syria.

In the Afghan offshoot's early months, Islamic State leadership in the Middle East sent money to help it along. But officials say the group has approached self-sufficiency by extorting money from locals along with smuggling timber, drugs and raw earth material, such as lapis lazuli, mined in some of the eastern provinces.

There are an estimated 3,000 Islamic State fighters in Afghanistan, but their relatively low numbers belie the group's growing support network of facilitators with unclear alliances and its ability to move with relative ease between Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to the officials.

But no Islamic State cell is more threatening to maintaining stability in Afghanistan than the one in Kabul, the Afghan capital.

The Islamic State groups there have become increasingly skilled in avoiding detection, the officials said, staging high-profile attacks more frequently since 2016. Last year, it carried out an estimated 24 attacks in Kabul, outpacing the Taliban's Haqqani network as the most lethal group in the capital, officials said.

The group's growing profile, particularly within Kabul, led Gen. Austin Miller to form a special operations task force soon after he took command of the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan last year. The task force, led by U.S. troops, works alongside Afghan police special units to track and target Islamic State members.

The task force, according to one U.S. defense official, could be the foundation for a counterterrorism force left behind after any peace agreement with the Taliban is reached.

But that idea remains a sticking point in the continuing peace talks in Qatar. U.S. military officials say the Taliban have pushed back on that proposal, insisting that their fighters could handle and defeat the Islamic State loyalists.

Recently, though, the Taliban have done little to fight the Islamic State. U.S. officials give the example of Kunar province, where the extremist group has quietly probed into Taliban-held territory for months and where Taliban counterattacks have gained little traction. Taliban fighters there, for the most part, have continued to focus on attacking Afghan government forces rather than the competing militants, the officials said.

A Section on 06/15/2019

Upcoming Events