Taliban Spokesman Confirms Early Contact With ISIS

Kabul (GNP): Afghanistan’s Taliban leadership maintained contact with ISIS during the militant group’s early years in the country, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has confirmed, revealing that former Taliban leader Akhtar Mohammad Mansour initially sought dialogue with the organisation rather than moving straight to confrontation. ISIS, or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is designated as a terrorist organisation by the United Nations and remains subject to UN sanctions.

Speaking on a Taliban-affiliated podcast, Mujahid said Mansour instructed him to open contact with ISIS after the group first emerged in Afghanistan in 2015. He said he drafted a message on Mansour’s behalf and, once it was approved, sent it by email to Abu Mohammad al-Adnani, who served as ISIS spokesman at the time.

According to Mujahid, Mansour’s preference at that stage was for communication and mutual understanding rather than open conflict, with the Taliban’s message specifically asking ISIS not to recruit from within Taliban ranks.

Al-Adnani is reported to have responded harshly, urging the Taliban to make its positions and demands public rather than communicate privately, while also calling on the group to pledge allegiance to ISIS. Mujahid did not disclose the full contents of the exchange or offer further details of what followed.

The contact came in the same year ISIS established its Afghanistan affiliate, a presence that soon put the group into direct conflict with the Taliban across several parts of the country.

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Mujahid again described ISIS as “Takfiri” while discussing the fighting between the two sides, and the Taliban has repeatedly maintained that its security operations have significantly weakened the group’s capacity within Afghanistan.

Despite those claims, security experts continue to view ISIS as a persistent security challenge for Afghanistan and the wider region, citing its continued ability to carry out targeted attacks and its ideological opposition to Taliban rule.

Mujahid’s remarks are notable in this context, offering a rare public account from a senior Taliban official of direct communication between the two groups during the earliest phase of ISIS’s expansion in Afghanistan.