The Pashtun people are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. And they make up the majority of the Taliban. What's interesting about the Pashtun people is that they are believed to be the descendants of the lost tribes of Israel.

The bible tells us where some of the tribes ended up:

• The God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria (that is, Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria), who took the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh into exile. He took them to Halah, Habor, Hara and the river of Gozan, where they are to this day. (1Chronicles 5:26)

Those resemble placenames in Afghanistan and Western Pakistan.

• Habor = khyber or even Pesh-hawar
• Hara = Herat
• River Gozan = River Ghazni (now known as the Amu Darya)

Pashtun tribe names resemble Israelite tribe names :

• Ephraim = Afridi (Just as Ephraim was the largest Israelite tribe, "Afridi" is the largest Pashtun tribe)
• Joseph = Yusufzai
• Gad = Gadoon or Jaji
• Reuben = Rabbani
• Levi = Lowani
• Asher = Ashuri

And so on.

The names of certain Pashtun cities and towns appear to be named after the Israelites. For example :

Zabulistan (region in Afghanistan) appears to be named after Zebulon, a son of Jacob and Kohat (City in Pakistan) appears to be named after Kohath, son of Levi. It's difficult to dismiss those as coincidences because there is a region in Afghanistan and Western Pakistan named "the desert of the Jews".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasht-e_Yahudi

That indicates that the Israelites had a presence in that part of the world in the ancient past.

Its also been documented by many historians that Pashtun customs resemble testament law.

• if a man dies, his bother marries his widow.
• abstinence from camel meat (even though Muslims are permitted to eat camel meat)
• 8th day circumcision for boys
• cities of refuge for people guilty of unintentional killing.
• lighting candles on Saturdays (the Pashtuns just did it because it was their custom and did not really know why).

That info can be found on the Internet. (Google: "Pashtun Israelite customs"). Although I suspect they may have abandoned those practices after the Taliban came into power in the 90s.

I've read about the Pashtun-Israelite connection in various works by Christian and secular writers. The first time in the late 90s in a book called "Prince of Darkness : Antichrist and the New World Order" by Christian author Grant R. Jeffrey.

Despite being Sunni Muslims Afghan Pashtuns also have a strange tradition of being descended from the "bani Israel" (meaning "sons of Israel").

The Pashtun-Israelite connection is not a wild speculation but is actually very well documented knowledge.

Here are some resources:

• The Jerusalem Post has an article on the Afghan pashtun link to Israel : https://m.jpost.com/opinion/the-afghan-pashtuns-and-the-missing-israelite-exiles-543181/amp
• Itzhak Ben-Zvi, the second President of Israel, also writes about the Pashtun-Israelite connection in a 1957 book, saying "if the Afghan tribes persistently adhere to the tradition that they were once Hebrews and in course of time embraced Islam, and there is not an alternative tradition also existent among them, they are certainly Jewish."
• Watch this video by a Jewish historian if you're interested in learning more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-H1-uoAuDM
• Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_Pashtun_origin