The Islamic State–Taliban conflict is an ongoing armed conflict between the Islamic State and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The conflict escalated when militants who were affiliated with Islamic State – Khorasan Province killed Abdul Ghani, a senior Taliban commander in Logar province on 2 February 2015. Since then, the Taliban and IS-KP have engaged in clashes over the control of territory, mostly in eastern Afghanistan, but clashes have also occurred between the Taliban and IS-KP cells which are located in the north-west and south-west.
The Haqqani network, al-Qaeda and others support the Taliban, while IS is supported by the Mullah Dadullah Front and the pro-ISIS faction of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. After the takeover of Kabul by the Taliban in 2021, several members of the Afghan intelligence agency and the Afghan national army have also joined the Islamic State – Khorasan Province. In February 2022, Pakistani officials acknowledged that ongoing violence was destabilizing the region. The High Council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, previously a breakaway Taliban faction, announced after the 2021 fall of Kabul that they have pledged allegiance to the Taliban and will dissolve.
Background
During their original stint in power of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in the late 1990s, the ruling Taliban had pursued a policy of suppressing Salafism; motivated by strict Deobandi tenets. During this period, the main issue of Salafist scholars was that Taliban was led by Maturidi Sufis. As a result of the unofficial Taliban bans on Ahl-i Hadith during the 1996-2001 era, several Salafis had shifted to Peshawar. However, after the US-led Invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Taliban and Ahl-i Hadith allied to wage a common Jihad to resist the invasion. The Afghan Salafists decided to put aside their differences with the Taliban to join them in the “greater jihad” against the United States. Several Arab Salafis in Al-Qaeda rank and file would mediate the disputes between Afghan Salafists and Taliban; enabling them to unify for the more important religious duty of fighting against the U.S and its allies in Afghanistan. Many Salafi commanders and Ahl-i Hadith organisations participated in the Taliban insurgency (2001-2021) under Afghan Taliban's command.
During the Taliban insurgency, in January 2015, IS established itself in Khorasan and formed IS-K. The main objective of IS-K was to occupy the land of Khorasan, that includes the country of Afghanistan. Even though the initial IS-K was formed by Taliban as well as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) defectors and thus ideologically similar, it became dominated by Salafists. The disgruntled members of TTP would establish IS-KP and shifted to the Nangarhar province. After its founding Pakistani leaders who defected from TTP were killed in US drone strikes, Afghan Salafists took charge of TTP.
The emergence of IS-K provided militant Afghan Salafists with an opportunity to set up a rival force, although Salafist support for the group waned as it proved ideologically "too extreme and brutal" for most Afghan Salafis. As a result, the majority of Afghan Salafis have remained supportive of the Taliban. In March 2020, major Pashtun Ahl-i Hadith ulema convened in Peshawar under the leadership of Shaikh Abdul Aziz Nooristani and Haji Hayatullah to pledge Bay'ah (oath of loyalty) to the Taliban and publicly condemn IS-K. The scholars also requested protection from the Afghan Taliban for the Ahl-i Hadith community.
After Taliban victory in the War in Afghanistan and Restoration of the Islamic Emirate, hundreds of Ahl-i Hadith ulema would gather to announce their Bay'ah (pledge of allegiance) to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Numerous Ahl-i Hadith clerics and their representatives held gatherings across various provinces of Afghanistan to re-affirm their backing of the Taliban and officially declare their support to the Taliban crackdown on IS-K.