When two Hellfire missiles last July smashed into the Kabul safehouse that Afghanistan's regime had been providing to Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri, thereby killing him, the incident simply underscored the continued strong bonds between the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
This terrorist alliance, originally forged in the 1990s by the now-deceased leaders of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, Osama bin Ladin and Mullah Omar, has resisted intense US pressure to break it up. With the departure of NATO and US forces from Afghanistan, jihadists from the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) have been intensifying their attacks on the Taliban.
Despite ideological differences, China and Afghanistan are in the process of forming a transactional relationship based on interests. China most likely is waiting for the Taliban to grant it access to Afghanistan's huge deposits of rare earth materials that America left behind.
Even before the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was complete, several Chinese mining companies were on the hunt for Afghanistan's vast lithium deposits, particularly in Ghazni Province which may have the world's largest supply. Lithium is a key component in the large batteries required by the electric vehicle industry. China is already the world's largest importer of copper ore, especially from Peru and Chile, and Afghanistan sits on what is estimated to be the largest copper deposit in the world. China may also be interested in harvesting Afghanistan's estimated 2.2 billion tons of iron ore.
China has been calling on the US to release the $7 billion of Afghanistan's foreign exchange reserves that Washington had frozen after the collapse of the Kabul government in August 2021. China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi , the highest level Chinese diplomat to visit Kabul in March 2022 after the American withdrawal, recently also urged the US to lift sanctions against the Taliban government.
China, in turn, is asking for a guarantee from the Taliban not to permit any presence of anti-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ethnic Uighur jihadists in Afghanistan. Chinese concerns are warranted. Uighur Islamists, such as members of the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), have reportedly served for years in the ranks of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. US intelligence has detected new training camps in Afghanistan.
If inter-tribal terrorist incidents or assaults on Chinese projects dampen China's extraction of valuable raw materials from Afghanistan, Beijing is likely to continue to expand its security initiatives in the region. China shares a 47 mile border with Afghanistan, called the Wakhan Corridor.
The Taliban cannot protect Chinese workers in Afghanistan. On December 12, Islamic State attacked the Chinese-owned Hotel Longan, frequently used by Chinese diplomats, and killed several Chinese nationals. ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the attack. Chinese media immediately urged Chinese citizens to leave Afghanistan.
ISIS-K jihadists, in their war against the Taliban, possibly are attempting to disrupt China's new commercial interests and investment relationship with the Taliban regime. ISIS-K has also condemned the Taliban's willingness to talk with the West and China, and accuses the Taliban of apostasy and of being "filthy nationalists."
The Taliban government may reach out to its traditional allies within Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to help satisfy China's insistence that Kabul protect Chinese projects and personnel in Afghanistan. The responsibility to execute this mission may fall upon the shoulders of Afghanistan's Minister of Interior and Deputy Commander of the Taliban Sirajuddin Haqqani, a close ally of Pakistani militants as well as the ISI.
Despite the Taliban's political and military control in Afghanistan, the momentum seems to rest with ISIS. The penchant of ISIS in Afghanistan for violent jihad and accepting former Taliban members into its ranks appear to give it an advantage, However, despite ISIS's projected image of uncompromising jihad and its depiction of the Taliban as being quiescent regarding Beijing's persecution of its Uighur Muslims, ISIS has itself in recent years refrained from condemning China.
It remains to be seen if China decides that, at least for now, a trillion dollars' worth of Afghan mineral deposits might not be worth the risk of being in the midst of terrorist civil war between the Taliban and the Islamic State.
Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin was the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army and as a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve.
