Islamic State Jihadists in Afghanistan by Lawrence A. Franklin

Despite ideological differences, Communist China and Afghanistan are in the process of forming a transactional relationship based on interests. Communist 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.

It remains to be seen if Communist 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.

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, Communist China and Afghanistan are in the process of forming a transactional relationship based on interests. Communist 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.