By Abdan Safi
Yesterday, a suicide bombing targeted a hotel in Kabul’s Shahr-e-Naw area, killing one Chinese national and six Afghan civilians. Soon afterward, responsibility for the attack was claimed by ISIS-K, the modern incarnation of the Khawarij.
This claim of responsibility exposes two critical realities and further sharpens the contradiction between ISIS-K’s rhetoric and its actions. The attack lays bare the fraudulent nature of the group’s so-called caliphate, a claim that is neither grounded in Islamic principles nor supported by moral or legal legitimacy.
From the moment these Khawarij emerged in Iraq and Syria and later expanded into Afghanistan, they have justified the killing of Muslims, particularly mujahideen, on the assertion that a caliphate had been established. They demanded unconditional allegiance from all Muslims and declared anyone who refused to pledge loyalty to their fabricated authority an apostate worthy of death.
They proclaimed that their system would unite Muslims under a single banner, regardless of nationality or geography. Any Muslim, they claimed, would belong to their caliphate, whose stated purpose was the unity and welfare of the Ummah.
Yet when judged by their own standards, their claims collapse entirely.
The victims of yesterday’s attack were Chinese Muslims targeted solely because of their nationality. This is especially revealing given that these individuals hailed from Xinjiang, a region whose Muslim population ISIS itself frequently invokes when speaking of oppression and injustice. If Muslim identity is truly the standard, then how does nationality become a death sentence?
This raises unavoidable questions. Does Islam permit the killing of a Muslim simply because he belongs to a state with which you claim to be at war? Does conducting business or residing in another Muslim country render a believer’s life lawful to take? Does the concept of the caliphate and Islamic unity permit declaring it unlawful for a Chinese Muslim to live in Kabul, and deeming his killing permissible on that basis?
Beyond the targeted victims, several other innocent Muslims were killed, people who were merely passing by or had entered the hotel for a meal. Their nationality is irrelevant. They were Muslims, bound by faith, not by nationality.
This attack also confirms a deeper truth. ISIS is not an ideological, religious, or genuinely jihadi movement. It functions instead as a proxy group serving the interests of several intelligence agencies. Its actions consistently align with external political agendas, executed according to instructions it neither designs nor controls.
The group’s true nature is now unmistakable and exposed for all to see. These are not principled actors but hired killers, mercenaries driven by money and manipulation. To mask their weakness and their repeated failures, they are willing to spill the blood of any innocent Muslim.
Their claims of faith are hollow. Their caliphate is a lie. And their legacy is one of betrayal, bloodshed, and moral collapse.
