Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province is a branch of the militant Islamist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant active in South Asia and Central Asia. Some media sources also use the terms ISK, ISISK, IS-KP, ISIS-K, or Daesh-Khorasan in referring to the group. The Khorasan group's main activity is in the border region of eastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, but its area of operations also includes other parts such as Tajikistan, and India where individuals have pledged allegiance to it.
ISIL announced the group's formation in January 2015 and appointed former Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan militant Hafiz Saeed Khan as its leader, with former Afghan Taliban commander Abdul Rauf Aliza appointed as deputy leader. Aliza was killed in a U.S. drone strike in February 2015, while Khan was killed in a U.S. airstrike in July 2016.
The leader of the ISIL, Abdullah Orokzai, also known as Aslam Farooqi, was captured in April 2020.
Background
Around September 2014, ISIL sent representatives to Pakistan to meet with local militants, including some Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan factions, following several months of discussions. At the same time, leaflets, flags and propaganda materials in support of ISIL began being distributed in parts of Pakistan, including a pamphlet written in Pashto and Dari that called on all Muslims to swear allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The leaflets were believed to have been produced and distributed from across the border in Afghanistan. In October 2014, former Taliban commander Abdul Rauf Khadim visited Iraq. Later on he returned to Afghanistan where he recruited followers in Helmand and Farah provinces. In the same month, 6 TTP commanders in Pakistan; Hafiz Khan Saeed, official spokesman Shahidullah Shahid, and the TTP commanders of Kurram and Khyber tribal regions and Peshawar and Hangu Districts, publicly defected from the TTP and pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.On 10 January 2015, these six individuals appeared in a video where they again pledged allegiance to al-Baghdadi and nominated Hafiz Saeed Khan as the leader of their group. They were joined by other mid-level militant commanders, including representatives from Afghanistan's Logar and Kunar Province and Pakistan's Lakki Marwat. Shahidullah Shahid claimed that other Jihadists from both countries supported the pledge of allegiance but had been unable to attend the meeting in person.
Afghanistan and India have suspected that ISIL-K is a breakaway faction of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.
Support basis
In Afghanistan, ISIL has not only been recruiting from the villages but also the urban middle class and specifically targeting the universities, as there have been numerous cases of lecturers in Islamic law as well students at the country's largest university, Kabul University, pledging allegiance to the group.As for Pakistan, scholar Antonio Giustozzi, one of the foremost specialists of terrorism and insurgency in the region, says that "IS-K might have been more successful in Pakistan", and "most recruitment was indeed reported to be taking place in madrasas; the second most important types of recruits were villagers and students" and noting, based on the findings of an NGO which works "extensively with madrasas and mosques", that "nine major madrasas had links to IS-K, as well as another 100 or so small madrasas networked with these nine. The source also estimated that of the mosques the NGO supported, about 150 in Pakistan were connected to IS-K."
History
On 26 January 2015, ISIL's official spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani released an audio statement in which he accepted the earlier pledge of allegiance and announced the expansion of ISIL's caliphate with the creation of Wilayat Khorasan, a historical region incorporating parts of modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan. Hafiz Khan Saeed was appointed as its local leader, or Wāli. Abdul Rauf was named as Khan's deputy, however he was killed by a US drone strike in Afghanistan several weeks later.ISIL began actively recruiting defectors from the Taliban, in particular among those who were disgruntled with their leaders or lack of battlefield success. This prompted senior Taliban leader Akhtar Mansour to write a letter addressed to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, asking for the recruitment in Afghanistan to stop and arguing that the war in Afghanistan should be under the Taliban leadership. Nevertheless, fighting between the two groups broke out in Nangarhar Province, and by June 2015 ISIL had been able to seize territory in Afghanistan for the first time. After successfully driving the Taliban out of several districts of Nangarhar after months of clashes, the group started carrying out their first attacks against Afghan forces in the province. Khorasan Province also developed a presence in other provinces, including Helmand and Farah. In late 2015, ISIL began broadcasting Pashto language radio in Nangarhar Province, later on adding content in Dari.
The group was boosted in August 2015 when the Afghanistan-based militant group, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, pledged allegiance to ISIL and declared that they were members of Wilayah Khorasan. Clashes broke out between the IMU and the Taliban in Zabul province following this pledge. The Taliban launched an offensive against the Uzbeks, causing heavy casualties and eliminating its presence in the province by the end of the year. The Taliban also succeeded in dislodging ISIL from Farah province over the same period.
The group suffered further reversals in 2016, losing control of much of its territory in Nangarhar province. It was driven out of Achin and Shinwar Districts following a military operation by Afghan Security Forces, while clashes with the Taliban led to them being driven out of Batikot and Chaparhar districts. Following the loosening of targeting restrictions by US Forces in Afghanistan earlier in the year, the US Air Force began conducting scores of air strikes against ISIL targets. In April 2016 the Taliban reported that a number of senior and mid-level leaders of Wilayah Khorasan in Nangarhar Province had defected from ISIL and pledged allegiance to Taliban leader Akhtar Mansour. The defectors included members of the group's central council, judicial council, and prisoners council, as well as several field commanders and their fighters.
On May 15, 2019, ISIS declared new 'Pakistan Province' and 'India Province' branches after claiming attacks in Balochistan and Kashmir respectively. This suggests that while the Khorasan Province still exists, its self-proclaimed geographical area is likely reduced.
On April 4, 2020, the National Directorate of Security announced the arrest of the head of ISIL, Aslam Farooqi, by the Afghan military forces, who took him into custody along with 20 other commanders.
On July 26, 2020 a United Nations report stated that it even though the ISIL branch in Afghanistan has suffered further severe reverses in its former Afghan strongholds of Nangarhar and Kunar provinces, it was too soon to discount it as a threat and although in territorial retreat, ISIL in Afghanistan remains capable of carrying out high-profile attacks in various parts of the country, including Kabul, it added.
Operations against ISIS – Khorasan Province
The following are major operations conducted against ISK by the forces of United States, Pakistan andAfghanistan.
MOAB Airstrike in Achin
On 13 April 2017, a GBU43/B MOAB was dropped in an airstrike on a cave complex in Achin District, Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. It was the first use of the bomb on the battlefield. The Afghan defence ministry reported it to have killed over 36 militants and destroyed the tunnel complex including a cache of weapons. No civilian casualties were reported.Operation by Pakistan's forces
On 14 April 2017, Pakistan's security agencies, along with the local police raided a house in Lahore's Factory Area as part of their combing operation, which was approved by Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff Qamar Javed Bajwa in the aftermath of Mall Road bombing. After an exchange of fire which killed one terrorist, three other suspects were arrested, one of them being Noreen Leghari, a student from Hyderabad, Pakistan who was claimed to be missing by her family 4 days prior to the raid. On a confessional statement released by ISPR, Noreen confessed to joining ISIL through a terrorist she met on social media, She also told authorities that she was recruited by ISIL to attack a church in Lahore on the Easter Sunday, two suicide jackets, four hand grenades and bullets were provided to them.On 4 September 2019, In a joint operation of Counter Terrorism Department, FIA and Balochistan Constabulary at least 6 ISIS militants were killed in an intelligence-based operation in Quetta's Eastern Bypass area. During the operation, one official of the Balochistan Constabulary was killed and eight others from the Counter Terrorism Department were injured.
Operations by the US and Afghan security forces in Nangarhar
On 26 April 2017, a joint raid operation committed by U.S. Army Rangers and Afghan Special Forces in the Nangarhar Province resulted in the death of Sheikh Abdul Hasib, the leader of ISIL in Afghanistan. Along with Hasib, a number of other top commanders of ISIL were killed, according to a statement by the U.S. Military. Two U.S. soldiers died during the operation, possibly due to friendly fire.On 1 January 2019, Afghan Special Forces attacked ISIS-K in Nangarhar Province's Achin District, killing 27 militants according to officials. Two local ISIS leaders, Sediq Yar and Syed Omar, were reported to be among those killed. On 10 January, senior ISIS-K commander Khetab Emir was also killed in a raid in Nangarhar according to a U.S. forces spokesman. Emir was reported to have facilitated major attacks and provided ISIS-K bombmakers with explosive materials.
On April 30, 2019, Afghan government forces undertook clearing operations directed against both ISIS-K and the Taliban in eastern Nangarhar Province, after the two groups fought for over a week over a group of villages in an area of illegal talc mining. The National Directorate of Security claimed 22 ISIS-K fighters were killed and two weapons caches destroyed, while the Taliban claimed US-backed Afghan forces killed seven civilians; a provincial official said over 9,000 families had been displaced by the fighting.
On August 21, 2019, an airstrike killed 6 militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Nangarhar province including two Pakistani nationals.
Analysis
According to a UN report, up to 70 ISIL fighters arrived from Iraq and Syria to form the core of the group in Afghanistan. Alongside foreign fighters from Pakistan and Uzbekistan, most of the group's membership growth has come from recruiting Afghan defectors from the Taliban. US General Sean Swindell told the BBC that members of Khorasan Province are in contact with ISIL's central leadership in Syria, although the exact relationship between the two is unclear.While the group has managed to establish a foothold in Afghanistan, it has had less success in Pakistan, largely carrying out isolated, small scale attacks.