In a performance of peak hypocrisy, the Taliban has publicly denied the presence of ISIS in Afghanistan, while simultaneously executing and broadcasting the beheading of three alleged ISIS-Khorasan (IS-K) commanders in Kunar province.
Speaking to local media, Taliban deputy spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat assured both Afghans and the international community that ISIS has been “completely suppressed” and “no longer operates” within the country’s borders. The statement was a rebuttal to Russian security chief Yury Kokov, who had warned that ISIS remains active in Afghanistan and could threaten Central Asia and Russia.
Apparently, someone forgot to update the Taliban’s public relations team.
Just hours after Fitrat’s denial, Taliban-linked social media accounts proudly circulated gruesome images of three decapitated men, identified as Abu Bakr, Talha, and Aman Gul, alleged IS-K operatives, one of whom reportedly served as the group’s shadow governor for Laghman province.
So much for “nonexistent.”
The executions, carried out in Asadabad district of Kunar on June 29, were presented as part of an ongoing Taliban campaign to eliminate IS-K cells in the east. But if ISIS is truly “eliminated,” as the Taliban insists, then these men were either ghost operatives, or the Taliban just executed civilians and called it counter-terrorism.
Security analysts aren’t buying the act. “This is hypocrisy, pure and simple,” said one Kabul-based observer. “You can’t decapitate senior members of a group you claim doesn’t exist, unless the real goal is to lie for diplomatic optics while ruling by fear on the ground.”
Taliban supporters cheered the executions, ignoring the small detail that none of the men had been tried, charged, or given any form of legal process. The killings, shared with graphic imagery on social platforms, raise deep concerns about due process, or the utter lack thereof, in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, ISIS has not released a statement regarding the incident, but the pattern of Taliban suppression paired with denial continues to repeat. And while the Taliban tells the world it has neutralized terrorism, its actions keep proving otherwise, loudly, violently, and hypocritically.
Russia, which keeps a wary diplomatic line open to the Taliban, may now be questioning how much of Kabul’s security narrative is spin, and how much is just plain contradiction wrapped in brutality.
