Afghan gun battles are now happening on the border of the EU.
After Biden’s withdrawal, the fighting ended in Afghanistan and moved into Europe.
Even before the Taliban takeover, massive traffic of migrants and drugs flowed over the ‘Balkan Route’ that took Afghans into Iran, Turkey, and then Eastern Europe. One of the biggest holes in Europe’s armor was the former Yugoslavia, illegally invaded and partitioned by the Clinton administration, with a large Muslim population in Bosnia and heavy criminal organizations across the former republic that tie together the Russian mob, local gangs, Islamic terrorists, and Turkish, Pakistani and Afghan operations moving weapons and drugs.
All of this comes together at the border between Serbia and Yugoslavia. Parts of Serbia’s border areas have become no-go zones: territories occupied by Muslim gangs. Serbian police raids on “migrants” now look like Israeli military operations with armored vehicles and troops. These raids have rounded up thousands of migrants along with automatic rifles and bombs.
Ever since Hungary began fortifying its border, the Muslim gangs had to work harder to penetrate it in order to continue moving their cargo into the rest of Europe. Faced with a more secure border, the smuggling was taken over by more violent groups. Including Al Qaeda.
Much as drug cartels followed Latin American migrants to America, the Afghan migrants traveling through Iran and Turkey to Eastern Europe were followed by Afghan Jihadis.
In Serbia’s border regions, competition between Afghan smuggling gangs broke out into open warfare with the groups using heavy weaponry against each other. Some of those weapons may have been left behind by the Biden administration when it fled Afghanistan. These gun battles are not just happening in deserted villages or near border fences, but in more populated areas.
The Serbian city of Subotica, with a population of nearly 100,000, has become ground zero for the migrant invasion. In September, Afghan and Moroccan Muslim gangs shot at each other in the parking lot of the multinational Lidl supermarket chain in a suburb of the city. The shooting spree in the crowded parking lot filled with families killed a 16-year-old girl.
The Afghan gangs that prevail in the gun battles that have become common on the route are the ones with the weapons and the training and are likely to be linked to the Haqqani Network.
When the Taliban took Kabul, it was actually the Haqqani Network which unlike most of the Taliban had built up professional units that resembled their NATO opposite numbers. The Haqqani Network had carried out some of the most devastating attacks against American forces in Afghanistan. The Haqqanis gained these capabilities through their close ties to Al Qaeda.
The Al Qaeda ties brought Arab Muslim money and training to the Afghan Jihadis. After the fall of Kabul, it was the Haqqanis who took over and decided who was allowed to reach the airport. The Biden administration had turned over passenger lists to the Al Qaeda group. After being put in charge of security in Kabul, Haqqani figures control security for the new Taliban regime.
Unlike the old Taliban leadership, which is reclusive and isolationist, the Haqqanis, true to their Al Qaeda links, have been focused on building up an international network. The Biden administration has decided that the Haqqanis, despite Al Qaeda, are moderates because they are more open to supporting education for girls and are willing to talk to the United States. But that is what makes the Haqqanis more dangerous because they are interested in the world.
The Haqqani interest appears to have taken the Al Qaeda linked Jihadis all the way to Europe.
György Bakondi, Hungary’s national security adviser, has warned that the Haqqanis won the gun battles and are now in charge of the smuggling route into the European Union.
“Smuggling gangs originating from Afghanistan in Serbia have family ties to the Taliban government in Afghanistan and the Haqqani network, which is a terrorist organization,” he said. “The Taliban secret services are now directly controlling the activities of these Afghan-origin smuggling groups.”
The Hungarian authorities have shown videos of aggressive efforts by Afghan migrants to invade their country. Migrants no longer just try to get across the border, they “are organized into military-style formations of 20 and armed with marbles, slingshots, and sticks to fight back against Hungarian border guards sent to stop them.” The Afghan smugglers carry assault rifles and open fire, into the air or at border patrol officers, to signal that a crossing is underway.
According to Bakondi, the smugglers have “family ties” to the Haqqanis. The Haqqanis are a large family and they also have extended clan connections. Using those family ties to gain control of the smuggling route into Europe would give them a financial lifeline outside of Afghanistan, whose main current source of income is foreign aid run out of Kabul-based NGOs that are taxed by the Haqqanis, and the ability to move Jihadis into Europe for future attacks.
The United States and European NATO members may have hoped to leave Afghanistan behind, but Afghanistan instead followed NATO. As Islamic terrorists always do. When France left North Africa, an army of North African immigrants followed and transformed France into a terror hub. Pakistanis did the same thing to the United Kingdom and Turks and Kurds to Germany.
America imported vast numbers of Afghan refugees and those we didn’t airlift are migrating to Europe. The Haqqani Network decided who would get on Biden’s evacuation planes. Now it’s deciding who gets to enter Europe. While the Haqqanis are cashing in, they’re also almost certainly bringing their own “family” members to Europe to set up local criminal operations.
The Taliban’s alleged ban on opium production was widely reported by the media, less widely reported was that the Taliban have switched from opium to meth. Despite the Taliban ban, opium production actually rose by a third, and the Taliban are cashing in on an artificial shortage that their regime temporarily created, but the real story is that Afghanistan has become the fastest-growing source of meth in the world. And the Islamists are using Iran as a model.
The Afghan smuggling route is also the transit point for moving meth from Iran to Europe. By controlling the route, the Haqqanis can potentially control both the heroin and the meth market. Human smuggling allows them to also bring in their people so that they control not only the transit of drugs but also the sale and distribution of them across Europe. Jihadis have already used access to the European criminal class to convert its members to Islam and recruit them.
While NATO may have left behind its ‘nation building’ operation to win ‘hearts and minds’ in Europe, the Jihadis it was fighting have followed NATO to Europe to build their own nation, their ‘ummah’, in the heart of the infidel enemy. And they’re winning ‘hearts and minds’ left and right.
Afghanistan is not just a place, it’s where the Afghans are. The Taliban and Al Qaeda were not left behind in the dust of Kabul, they are making the long trek into Europe. The Hungarians have tried to build a wall, but much as the Chinese learned during the Mongolian invasions or the Israelis learned on Oct 7, it’s not enough to build a wall, you have to vigilantly defend it. And given enough time, the barbarians will find a way around it, under it, over it, or through it.
Walls alone do not stop an invasion. Eventually you will have to fight and defeat the invaders.
