Pakistan using informal intelligence channels to prop up Taliban fight against ISIS

As the Islamic State-Khorasan is ramping up attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan is using a network of informal channels to feed intelligence and technical support to the Taliban to combat the threat, according to two Taliban leaders.

Pakistan is passing the group raw information as well as helping it monitor phone and Internet communication to identify Islamic State members and operational hubs, according to a senior Taliban leader who, along with a Taliban commander and others in this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

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“There are shrinking options regarding countries on which the U.S. could rely for staging counterterrorism operations,” said Lisa Curtis, a former adviser on South Asia to the White House National Security Council and now director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. Currently, the bulk of the U.S. military assets available for a possible strike in Afghanistan remain in Qatar, some 1,200 miles away, making their use “expensive and risky,” she said.

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