WASHINGTON: The Biden administration appears to be developing a new strategy for Afghanistan which includes targeting militants belonging to the militant Islamic State (IS) group Khorasan while cooperating with the Taliban to evacuate US citizens and Afghan allies.

President Joe Biden revealed in a speech on Thursday evening that he has ordered US military commanders to develop operational plans to strike IS-Khorasan assets, leadership and facilities.

IS-K has accepted responsibility for Thursday’s suicide attacks at the Kabul airport that killed 85 people including 13 American service members, one of the highest single-day US casualty in 20 years. A Taliban official said that 28 Taliban members were also killed in the attack.

Although contacts between Taliban and US military officials started soon after the Taliban takeover of Kabul last week, diplomatic sources told journalists in Washington that the blasts persuaded both to enhance their contacts.

On Friday, Emily Horne, a spokesperson for the US National Security Council told reporters that “in limited cases we have shared information with the Taliban that has successfully facilitated evacuations from Kabul.”

Soon after the airport attacks, President Biden addressed his national from the White House and pledged to eliminate those responsible for the blasts.

“To those who carried out this attack, as well as anyone who wishes America harm, know this: We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay,” he said. “We will respond with force and precision, at our time, at the place we choose and at the moment of our choosing.”

On Thursday evening, a Washington-based news service Politico reported that US officials in Kabul had shared with the Taliban a list of names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies who wanted to leave the country. The Taliban were asked to allow these people to enter the militant-controlled outer perimeter of the airport.

The Taliban not only obliged but also safely guided those people to the US military personnel who control the inner perimeter of the airport, the report added/

Since the fall of Kabul in mid-August, nearly 100,000 people have been evacuated, passing through the Taliban’s many checkpoints.

Asked about the report at a news conference, President Biden said: “There have been occasions when our military has contacted their military counterparts in the Taliban and said this, for example, this bus is coming through with X number of people on it, made up of the following group of people. We want you to let that bus or that group through,” he said. “So, yes there have been occasions like that. To the best of my knowledge, in those cases, the bulk of that has occurred and they have been let through.”

But he rejected the suggestion that US authorities had handed over a list of their Afghan allies to the Taliban. “I can’t tell you with any certitude that there’s actually been a list of names,” he added. “There may have been. But I know of no circumstance. It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist, that here’s the names of 12 people, they’re coming, let them through. It could very well have happened.”

An NBC News report claimed that veterans of the US Special Forces also carried out their own operations to bring about 500 Afghan allies and their families to the airport and they too operated through the Taliban-controlled areas.

Other US media sources reported that this undeclared coordination with the Taliban has continued despite the airport attacks, creating new opportunities for cooperation between the two rivals.

President Biden, however, used his speech to warn IS-K militants that they could not escape US retribution. “I will defend our interests and our people with every measure at my command,” he said.

Mr Biden also indicated that he could send more military assistance to Afghanistan if he felt the need for it. “I’ve instructed the military (to act) with whatever they need. If they need additional force, I will grant it,” he said. The attacks, he said, had only increased the determination of the US military to carry on its mission.

Mr Biden said that the service members who lost their lives in Kabul on Thursday were “heroes” and “the best the country has to offer”.

“The lives we lost today were lives given in the service of liberty, the service of security, the service of others, in the service of America,” he said.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2021