The passing of Eid al-Adha in peace and security across all of Afghanistan, with no significant incident anywhere in the country, is not simply an operational achievement. It is the product of something deeper: a mutually reinforcing relationship between the legitimacy of the system, the professionalism of the defense forces, the ideological and physical defeat of destructive groups, and the cooperation of the people. When we assess this remarkable security from a political and analytical standpoint, it becomes clear that this stability is the result of several interconnected factors working in harmony.
At the foundation of this success is the existence of a single, unified, and legitimate center of authority. In political science, the first condition of state stability is the elimination of parallel power structures and the uniform application of law across the entire territory. The religious and ideological character of the current system has ensured that there is no ambiguity in the chain of command. That clarity flows directly into the operational lines of the security forces, intelligence agencies, and interior institutions alike.
Within the ranks of the security forces, ideological conviction has given their work the weight of a divine obligation and a religious responsibility. This is why, during sensitive occasions like Eid, their capacity for detection and prevention was elevated. They were not defending the community for a salary or a benefit. They were defending it out of belief. That authority of the system, and that ideological alertness of the forces, has become the foundational reason why the schemes of extremist groups, particularly the ISIS Khawarij, have been neutralized before they could take shape.
The strategy of destructive groups has always rested on targeting civilian gatherings and religious occasions to spread terror and expose the government as incapable of protection. But when the intelligence apparatus of the state is deeply rooted among the people and operating in an offensive posture, the funding networks and operational cells of these groups are dismantled before they can act.
The complete silence and impotence of the ISIS Khawarij during Eid proved something important: they have not only lost their physical hideouts in Afghanistan, they have lost the operational capacity to plan at all, driven out by the relentless intelligence pressure of the state. And here the most critical link in the chain emerges, which is the support and satisfaction of the people, the direct result of the three factors above, and at the same time the fuel that sustains them. When a legitimate system delivers stability and its forces dismantle the plots of the extremist groups, an atmosphere of confidence and psychological calm settles over society.
The fearless movement of people during Eid, the extraordinary crowds filling the streets and public spaces, was the visible expression of that confidence. But this public satisfaction is not one-directional. Once people taste the sweetness of security, they become the primary guarantors of the system’s survival and stability. They willingly become the eyes and ears of the security forces, and they bring any attempt at infiltration in their communities to the attention of the intelligence agencies on their own. The absence of any popular base for the ISIS Khawarij in Afghanistan is, in truth, a consequence of this public trust.
Ultimately, the security achieved during these sacred days of Eid in Afghanistan follows a specific and interlocking formula. The political will of the legitimate Islamic system builds the ideological capacity of the security forces. That capacity dismantles the schemes of the extremist groups and pulls them out by the roots. The elimination of those threats produces public calm and satisfaction. And that public calm and cooperation, in turn, becomes the guarantor of the system’s continuity and stability. It is a mutual and inseparable connection, and it is what has made Afghanistan’s security model, at this moment, genuinely without parallel in the region.