Presence of people linked to insurgent groups such as Taliban and Hezb e Islam in the main system of the government and its security apparatus is an established and proven fact. These snakes of the grass not only act as spies transferring useful information to their respective groups but also launch terror attacks such as insider attacks, if commanded. The government and its spy agency despite knowing the fact has been unable to hunt such people down. Persistence of such a condition poses serious threats to post-2014 Afghanistan when the insurgents will be using all means available to them to topple the Afghan government. One of the means available to them is their sympathizers and agents performing various duties inside the government offices.

Defection of Afghan security forces to Taliban has not been uncommon especially over the last few years. One Sunday, officials in the eastern Kunar province said that Mosif Khan, an Afghan army Special Forces commander has defected to Hezb e Islam, an insurgent group allied with the Taliban in a Humvee truck packed with his team's guns and high-tech equipment. Monsif Khan is the first Special Forces commander to switch sides.

The incident is an indicator of the fact that insurgents have their people even inside Afghanistan’s most sensitive units such as Special Forces. The day the Afghan government loses world support, the number of people who will defect to Taliban and other terror groups will not be less.

This has been observed over the past few years that people in Afghan security forces that are linked to insurgent groups have been launching insider attacks on the order of their commanders. At least 60 NATO soldiers and civilian contractors were killed last year in the same kind of attacks. Sometimes, an Afghan soldier or police kills his fellows, takes ammunition and vehicle and joins the Taliban.

Taliban claim to have infiltrated the ANSF and it would be a difficult task to identify their sympathizers. Victims of insider attacks have not been only the foreigners but also Afghan security forces. There have been a number of incidents where a rogue Afghan police has slaughtered his fellows and then has fled to join Taliban.

The US-led forces are in the process of withdrawing from Afghanistan. Once majority of them are out of Afghanistan, the focus of Taliban might turn towards weakening the Afghan security forces through various tactics, one of which could be the insider attacks. Taliban sympathizers hidden in ANSF may turn towards killing Afghan soldiers or police and that will be catastrophic for Afghanistan.