KABUL: Taliban authorities said on Friday they were investigating the killing of a provincial governor, which according to experts has spotlighted security lapses in the Afghan administration and militants’ capacity to launch high-impact attacks.
The Taliban governor of Afghanistan’s northern Balkh province, Mohammed Dawood Muzamil, was killed in a suicide blast on Thursday. The attack was claimed by a regional affiliate of Daesh known as Islamic State Khorasan Province, or Daesh-K.
Muzamil was one of the most senior officials confirmed to have been killed since the Taliban took control of the country in 2021, following the withdrawal of US forces.
“Joint security investigations by intelligence, provincial police headquarters and other relevant security organs are underway,” Mohammed Asif Waziri, spokesman for the Balkh police, told Arab News. “The incident happened when the suicide bomber hugged the governor at his office and blew himself up. Unfortunately, the governor himself and two other civilians were martyred and four others wounded.”
The attack came after the Taliban had killed several senior Daesh members in last month’s crackdown. The governor was a key figure within the Taliban behind raids against the group and had spearheaded anti-Daesh operations in the country’s eastern province of Nangarhar in late 2021.
“The slain governor Mohammed Dawood Muzamil had a very serious and decisive stance against the Daesh rebels in Nangarhar. Muzamil had eliminated most of the key and operative members of the Daesh group,” Mohammed Sharif, political and security expert in Kabul, said. “He was so important for Daesh to be eliminated, so they targeted him rather than other members of the Taliban…It was a big victory for them.”
He found it concerning that the group managed to carry out the attack despite intelligence and security arrangements for the governor.
“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan personnel should take serious measures,” Sharif said. “If a governor is not protected from such attacks, then what about others?”
But for Ibraheem Bahiss, Afghan security analyst at the International Crisis Group, it was too early to say that the Taliban were losing their grip on security as, in general, violence across the country was still at a record low.
“The Taliban have recently claimed several high-profile successes against ISKP, including killing the head of (Daesh’s) Hind province and killing the group’s head of intelligence and urban operations — both in February,” Bahiss said.
The killing of the Balkh governor was the first Daesh attack in the past seven weeks.
“This suggests that while ISKP certainly retains its capacity to launch high-impact attacks, it currently doesn’t have the capacity to territorially challenge the Taliban or launch high-frequency attacks against the government,” Bahiss told Arab News.
“But the struggle between ISKP and the Taliban is likely to be a generational struggle, and it is difficult to determine whether the Taliban will be able to contain this threat or whether it will expand.”
