From Kabul to Jenin to Jerusalem

Why Israel is Wary about the Taliban’s Takeover of Afghanistan

BY SHAMMAI SISKIND

Abdullah Yusuf Azzam was born in the village of Silat Al-Khartiya near Jenin in 1941.

As a child, he witnessed the hostilities leading up to Israel’s War of Independence in what was at that time Mandate Palestine.

A child prodigy, he spent his teenage and young adult years studying in religious and academic institutions in Syria and the Jordan-controlled West Bank. Following the Six Day War, Azzam followed thousands of his fellow Palestinians in a mass exodus out of the territories captured by Israel. He settled in Jordan and joined the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

By this time, Azzam had already been identified as a skilled orator and religious preacher, someone who could really rally the troops for the Islamist cause. But Azzam did not just talk the talk. He was himself a devoted jihadist warrior. Shortly after arriving in Jordan, Azzam was participating in terror operations against Israel in the Jordan Valley and elsewhere in collaboration with various Palestinian groups.

In the early 1970s, Azzam returned to his studies after being accepted to the prestigious Al Azhar University in Egypt, one of the most respected religious institutions in the Muslim world. With a PhD in Islamic Jurisprudence under his belt, Azzam was offered a professorship at the King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he would remain until 1979. It was there that Azzam met his future protege, a young and aspiring student by the name of Osama Bin Laden.

Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Azzam decided to abandon his academic career and devoted himself full time to marshlaing – the Muslim world for jihad. He moved to Pakistan and settled in the western province of Peshawar, mere kilometers from the Afghan border. The Maktab al-Khadamat (command center) he established there was instrumental in recruiting and organizing the tens of thousands of volunteers from the Middle East, central Asia, and Europe who came to fight the Soviets.

Meanwhile, Bin Laden had completed his studies in Jeddah and was eager to rejoin his mentor. Scion to a prestigious and wealthy Saudi family, Bin Laden was a tremendous asset in Azzam’s efforts to recruit and deploy troops, as well as raise funds for the war. In 1984, Azzam and Bin Laden founded Bait ul-Ansar (House of Helpers) in Peshawar to expand their ability to support “Afghan Arab” jihad volunteers. It was from the Bait ul-Ansar that Bin Laden formed his private militia, a force that became legendary in the Afghan-Soviet War and eventually formed the base of his transnational terror group Al-Qaeda.

After ending his hands-on involvement in Afghanistan, Azzam traveled the world inspiring Muslim communities to participate in and otherwise support jihadist wars. His stops included dozens of Western cities in both Europe and the United States.

By the late 1980s, Azzam was an international superstar in the world of Islamist militantism, and his influence was only growing. But decades in the world of armed conflict garnered Azzam more than a few enemies. In 1989, Azzam was assassinated in Peshawar when a roadside bomb detonated near his vehicle while he was driving to Friday prayers. The identity of the culprits remains unknown.

It is difficult to overstate the influence Azzam’s activities and writings had on the trends of global jihad over the past twoand-a-half decades. He inspired militant movements from central Asia to the West Bank. He Abdullah Yusuf Azzam

Osama bin Laden with anti-Soviet fighters in Afghanistan in 1989 Adding up all the regional targets hit by Israel in recent years, from Iranian Revolutionary Guard bases in Syria, to Hezbollah weapons caravans, to the contraband routes of Hamas and others, a conservative estimate would put the number of Israeli strikes at well over a thousand.

personally radicalized many prominent jihadists such as El Sayyid Nosair, the man responsible for the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane. And, of course, his star pupil from Jeddah would go on to orchestrate the most infamous terror attack in U.S. history.

Azzam’s story in and of itself is quite remarkable. Through his exceptional organizational skills and unique charismatic power, a man who was a war refugee in early adulthood became instrumental in fomenting an international movement, one that remains active long after his death.

Beyond his historical significance and lingering influence, Azzam’s story highlights the important connections within the vast world of Islamist militantism. Specifically, it sheds light on what the current Afghan situation could mean for Israel’s security.

Upon the Taliban’s quick takeover of Afghanistan, which came in the immediate wake of America’s retreat, esteemed Arabist Mordechay Keidar of Bar Ilan University had this to say: “August 15, 2021 will forever be remembered in the Islamic world as the victory of Islam over the West.”

A statement like this could easily be dismissed as mere posturing and outright hyperbole. Anyone with a smidgen of knowledge on the Muslim world knows that it is anything but homogenous and that the same holds true for the wide array of militant groups that have emerged from that world. The Shiite Hezbollah group spent years battling ISIS and other Sunni militias bent on bringing down the Assad regime in Syria. Iran, the biggest exporter of extremist violence, was one of the only regional powers to have actively opposed the Taliban even before 9/11 and still works to suppress Sunni groups in Iraq and other countries. To this day, Al-Qaeda and its offshoots such as Al Shabaab continue to fight Islamic State loyalists for control in Yemen and East Africa. Indeed, the inter-conflicts between these groups, just in the past 20 years, has produced far more death and destruction than all the Islamist terror attacks perpetrated against the West. What is seen as a “victory” for one group is not necessarily a victory, or even a positive development, for another. And yet, despite the clear distinctions and inter-group tensions, there is in many important ways an overlap of interests when it comes to jihadism. Common goals are not a prerequisite for unity. Very often, all you need is a mutually beneficial development.

Discussing how the Taliban’s reemergence benefits the cause of global jihad can be taken up from many angles. But the one occupying strategists at IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv is most certainly how it will strengthen Israel’s enemies.

The Road from Jenin to Kabul is Still Open

During his time in Afghanistan, Abdullah Azzam never abandoned his youthful aspiration for the liberation of “occupied Palestine.” Indeed, he wrote an entire book, Memories from Palestine, to urge escalating the struggle against Israel. In a speech shortly before his death to an adoring audience in Oklahoma, Azzam urged his fellow Palestinians to come train with him in Afghanistan to prepare for a war with the Jews. “Sons of Palestine, you have an opportunity to train on every type of weapon [in Afghanistan]. This is a golden opportunity – do not miss it,” he implored.

While Azzam’s vision of raising a Palestinian army in Afghanistan to liberate Al-Aqsa never materialized, the man’s ideology was an instrumental force in creating the terror groups that continue to plague Israel, especially the Muslim Brotherhood-based Hamas. Like Azzam, the founders of the Palestinian terror group rejected the approach of PLO leaders such as Yasser Arafat of “playing the Western game,” accepting compromise and acquiescing to gestures of peace. Hamas from its outset was very explicit about its intentions of dislodging the Jews from the entire area between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. Like the Taliban, it was willing to fight the long fight. And so it has.

Considering this background, it should hardly come as a surprise that Hamas was one of the first organizations in the world to recognize the new Taliban government and applaud them on their victory.

“We congratulate the Muslim Afghan people for the defeat of the American occupation on all Afghan lands, and we congratulate the Taliban movement and its brave leadership on this victory, which culminated its long struggle over the past 20 years,” read the August 16th statement.

What is crucial to understand is that the Taliban’s return is not merely an ideological win for

Israel has conducted hundreds of airstrikes against terror groups over the past few years

jihadist groups fighting Israel. The new Taliban regime presents real and concrete opportunities for Israel’s enemies to advance their operations.

Currently, there are credible reports of Hamas agents already in Afghanistan. The alleged purpose of their mission is not just to foment diplomatic ties with Afghanistan’s new overlords but to establish facilities in the country by which they can train fighters and possibly facilitate their network of terror funding business ventures. (Keep in mind that Afghanistan is a major hub for terror finance. Consider the fact that the vast majority of the world’s heroin originates in the country, the proceeds of which almost exclusively end up in the hands of the Taliban.)

Similar reports are emerging regarding the Lebanese Hezbollah. While the group is the flagship of Shiite radicalism and should naturally be opposed to the ultra-Sunni Taliban, it is likely that the Taliban has accepted Hezbollah cooperation due to influence from yet another regional player, namely Iran. The mullahs of Tehran share a border with Afghanistan and have always sought to exert influence in the country. In the current geopolitical set-up, Iran’s concerns are to ally with the Taliban against Al-Qaeda (a group that opposed the Taliban’s complete control over Afghanistan) and ensure anti-Iranian militias aren’t able to establish themselves in the country.

Regardless of its motivations, Iran and its proxies gaining a foothold in the country is not a good thing as far as Israel is concerned. The vast territories of Afghanistan can provide a highly valuable setting for those with nefarious intentions from which financial and military assets can be developed and expanded.

The New Playing Field

The problem facing not just Israel but the entire world is the near total lack of intelligence with regard to Afghani issues at this time. The human spy networks developed by the Americans, British, and others over their years of occupying the country have largely been abandoned. The small nuggets of information that do emerge often consist of secondhand information, generally obtained by government officials with freshly formed ties to the new Taliban regime.

With little to knowledge about the goings-on inside Afghanistan, Israel will have to ensure that at least its defense is up to par. This will likely mean a ramping-up of the countermeasures that have become part and parcel of Israel’s regional strategy for nearly a decade. Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, dozens of militias and jihadist groups have taken advantage of the regional chaos and looked for opportunities to build operational spaces and establish routes for movement and smuggling. Israel has executed countless operations, mostly by air but also by sea, to offset activities by these groups, nearly all of whom self-identified as Israel’s enemies. Adding up all the regional targets hit by Israel in recent years, from Iranian Revolutionary Guard bases in Syria, to Hezbollah weapons caravans, to the contraband routes of Hamas and others, a conservative estimate would put the number of Israeli strikes at well over a thousand. Keep in mind the Israeli Air Force publicly admitted to two hundred strikes between 2017 and 2018 alone. Afghanistan becoming a militant haven could have a drastic impact on Israel’s efforts to clamp down on enemy activity in its backyard. True, Afghanistan is not in the same proximity to the Jewish States as Syria or the Sinai. But hostile groups having the flexibility and resources that come with a foothold in Afghanistan would contribute greatly to their capacity to operate closer to Israel’s borders.

The increase in Israel’s interest in Afghanistan has apparently prodded security officials to seek cooperation with its regional partners and other stakeholders to gather intelligence on the country. The day following the Taliban takeover officials from the Israeli Defense Ministry reported they had indications the Islamic State of Khorasan, the ISIS branch in Afghanistan and Pakistan, was already at work planning transnational attacks as far afield as Europe and North America. While Israel’s immediate worry is obviously its own domestic security (ISIS has in the past managed to infiltrate operatives into the country’s south), this type of information is also extremely valuable to ally countries, including those close to home such as Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. Ironically, the humiliation suffered by the United States and the absolute mess it left in Afghanistan may serve to increase Israel’s standing as a vital ally in the Middle East and the broader region.