In a recent interview, former Afghan President Hamid Karzai stated that there’s more extremism now in that country than when the U.S. came into Afghanistan over 16 years ago. He cited U.S. bombings and other “violations of sovereignty” as fueling extremism. He also charged that he had “more than suspicions” when asked if the U.S. was helping ISIS. He said that on a regular basis, he is getting reports of ISIS getting supplies by “non-military color” helicopters from U.S. bases. Karzai also charged that the U.S. government attempted to manipulate Afghanistan elections. See video clip and full interview on RT. Also see from April from the Voice of America: “Former Afghan President Karzai Calls Islamic State ‘Tool’ of U.S.”

JUNAID AHMAD, junaidsahmad at gmail.com

Ahmad is assistant professor at the University of Lahore in Pakistan, and Secretary-General of the International Movement for a Just World. Ahmed states that he has seen similar reports in Pakistan charging some U.S. backing of ISIS in Afghanistan. See Ahmed’s recent interview on The Real News.

MATTHEW HOH, matthew_hoh@ at riseup.net

In 2009, Hoh resigned his position with the State Department in Afghanistan in protest of the escalation of the war there by the Obama administration. See 2009 Washington Post piece about Hoh: “U.S. official resigns over Afghan war.” He previously had been in Iraq with a State Department team and with the U.S. Marines. He is now a senior fellow with the Center for International Policy.

He said today: “There was some serious reporting last year about the ISIS in Afghanistan group being former Pakistani Taliban, with the suggestion that some of this group was funded and utilized by the Afghan government, and by extension the United States and CIA in an attempt to sow division within both the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban organizations; the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban being two organizations with separate memberships and objectives, who do overlap and intermingle at times, as they have a common enemy in the United States. The ISIS in Afghanistan group are for the most part Pashtuns from Pakistan and Afghanistan, and are not foreign fighters from other nations; American troops, along with other NATO forces tend to be the only foreign fighters in Afghanistan. Rather ISIS members in Afghanistan are of an organization that has been in existence, but rebranded a few years ago for reasons of marketing, propaganda and funding, as we often see these groups do.”

As noted in leaked American intelligence documents and through the reporting of many and varied journalists over the last six plus years, the United States funded, supplied, armed and assisted, directly and indirectly, many jihadist groups, including ISIS in the early years of the Syrian civil war. American allies, including Israel, still support these jihadist groups directly in Syria, as well as Yemen. It would be naive, based upon decades of American covert actions and wars, to imagine the U.S. is not involved and complicit at some level with that support in these multiple countries, even if it is just approval from senior officials in Washington, DC.

“So the idea that somehow American forces or intelligence services in Afghanistan are somehow mixed up with the Islamic State is not beyond the realm of possibility, although the idea of American helicopters ferrying ISIS fighters does seem too much. I’ve been involved in these wars nearly from the start, and nothing at this point is too far of an absurdity or an outrage to consider in these unending immoral, destructive and mad wars.”

Background: From The American Conservative: “How America Armed Terrorists in Syria”

From Salon: “Leaked Hillary Clinton emails show U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar supported ISIS”

From Newsweek: “ISIS Fighters Regret Attacking Israel And Have ‘Apologized’, Former Defense Minister Says”

From the Afghanistan Analysts Network: “The Islamic State in ‘Khorasan’: How it began and where it stands now in Nangarhar“