Taliban in Kunduz, ISIS in Nangarhar: Fiefdoms of Conflict in Afghanistan

Taliban-ISIS animosity will not stop the two groups from fighting the Afghan government and making territorial gains.
Afghanistan has achieved a measure of economic and social resuscitation since 2001. However, the Taliban insurgency continues to haunt the country, a situation now exacerbated by the emergence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). A combination of factors, some internal and others external, are blamed for the current security landscape in Afghanistan. Major internal issues include ineffective governance and rampant corruption at various levels of government institutions, while external factors include Pakistan’s perpetual support for the Taliban and America’s apparent disregard for it. The poor governance has left the Afghan population disenchanted with their government, while the external failures enabled the fragmented remnants of the Taliban back in 2002 and 2003 to evolve an insurgent force now strong enough that it can bring a city such as Kunduz under its control in a span of 15 hours.