Islamic State in Khorasan Province
The Islamic State’s lightning advance across Iraq and Syria in 2014 – and its declaration of a ‘caliphate’ – spawned affiliates. These groups promoted the ideological line of, and received assistance from, the core of ISIS – but developed from local conditions.
One of them was ISIS-K, established in January 2015 and naming itself after ‘Khorasan’, part of an Islamic empire which stretched from Iran to the western Himalayas from the sixth century. The group consists of local militants and former Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, pushing an even more radical ideology and implementation, as well as some former al-Qaeda members. Spanning the Afghan-Pakistan border, the ISIS-K’s centre is in eastern Afghanistan in the Nangarhar and Kunar provinces.
While the Taliban sought to take control of Afghanistan, through military operations and then political talks, ISIS-K has sought to recruit members by generating publicity through deadly attacks on…