AMAC Exclusive – By Ben Solis
Baddar, a fourth-grader from Kabul, would never be late for school. His mother taught him that even if he is two minutes late to class, he wastes two minutes of time for both his teacher and each of his classmates. So last Friday, it was unsurprising when Baddar took his seat alongside 32 of his classmates right on time. Then the first bomb went off.
Shards of metal and broken glass exploded through the air, injuring children and throwing up a thick cloud of dust. Baddar, disoriented by the shock, ran to help an injured classmate who was bleeding from a wound to his head. The teacher shouted instructions to escape to a safe room downstairs.
Baddar and his classmates quickly followed orders, rushing toward the door. Just then, a second bomb went off. This time, a piece of metal struck Baddar’s head, knocking him to the ground. Baddar was quickly rushed to the hospital, where he thankfully was able to recover from his injuries along with 22 other classmates. 11 people, students and teachers included, were not so lucky, however, and died as a result of the attack.
Tragically, Baddar’s experience is not unique and is becoming more and more common. Though Afghanistan has faded from the headlines since Biden’s disastrous evacuation last year, its population continues to suffer at the hands of the brutal Taliban regime, and terror is once again thriving in the region.
In the days following the bombing of Baddar’s school, a series of attacks rocked Kabul and other cities in the West and North of Afghanistan. In one case, a bombing killed 100 believers praying in a mosque. In another, a terrorist shot dead four people on the road to the Pakistani border in the eastern province of Kunar.
The Taliban have blamed these attacks on the rival Islamic State affiliate known as “ISIS-K,” a terrorist cell that is notorious for committing atrocities against women and children. Though the Taliban insist that they have secured the country, those words likely ring hollow to families like Baddar’s who nearly lost their son or those who have lost loved ones to terrorist attacks.
Western analysts have warned that ISIS-K is stronger than ever, with more than 4,000 terrorists operating throughout the Middle East. Dr. Amira Jadoon, an assistant professor with the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, said ISIS-K has now become a more organized terrorist group and “enjoys more freedom than at any time in recent history.”
But physical violence isn’t the only crisis that has rocked Afghanistan since the U.S. exit. The country has since been thrust into economic turmoil, leading to widespread desperation for millions.
Among those facing abject poverty are Juma and his wife, who were forced to sell their four daughters to obtain basic supplies. A construction worker who lives in the Nawaki village in the northern province of Sar-e-Pul, Juma, has been unable to find work since the U.S. withdrawal. “I sold a three-day-old daughter for 11,000 afghanis and another daughter for 12,000 afghanis,” he told a local reporter. “My third and fourth daughters I sold for 9,000 and 10,000 afghanis.” He said that the rest of his family faced starvation had he not traded his children for funds.
The stories of both Baddar and Juma underscore the complete corruption and incompetence of the Taliban regime. Uneducated and isolated from the international community, the Taliban have proven completely incapable of providing for the security or the basic needs of the Afghan people.
While this situation is tragic in its own right, it may also soon become a national security concern for the United States as well, as American adversaries in Beijing and Moscow smell an opportunity.
In addition to oil and natural gas, Afghanistan is rich in minerals like copper and lithium, key resources for both China and Russia as the two countries develop closer ties and advance their global ambitions. In March, Putin’s envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi were in Kabul on the same day to discuss mining opportunities with the Afghan government. Without a U.S. presence on the ground, China and Russia have sought to extract Afghanistan’s natural resources for their own use.
Though the news cameras have now turned their attention to other things, like Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Biden’s woeful mishandling of Afghanistan continues to have negative downstream effects on both the Afghan people and U.S. strategic interests abroad. The administration would do well not to ignore the troubling events occurring there, no matter how much they would like to forget their failures.
Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian and researcher.