ISIS-Khorasan |
 | EXAMINING EXTREMISM: ISLAMIC STATE KHORASAN PROVINCE (ISKP) By Catrina Doxsee
The Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) is a branch of the Islamic State active in
Central and South Asia. This piece provides an overview of ISKP, including the group’s
history, ideology, organizational structure, tactics, and targets. It concludes with an
assessment that ISKP poses a significant threat within Afghanistan and will likely
continue to perpetrate attacks against civilians and the new Taliban government—
including against high-profile targets. This threat is ...Read more > | 8 Pages 2.64 MB |
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 | TIMELINE: THE RISE, SPREAD, AND FALL OF THE ISLAMIC STATE By Wilson Center
At its height, the Islamic State - also known as ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh - held about a third of Syria and 40
percent of Iraq. By December 2017 it had lost 95 percent of its territory, including its two biggest
properties, Mosul, Iraq s second largest city, and the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, its nominal capital.
The following is a timeline of the rise, spread and and fall of the Islamic State.
The Islamic State – also known as ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh – emerged from the remnants of al ...Read more > | 68 Pages 2.24 MB |
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 | THE ISLAMIC STATE IN AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN: ORIGINS, EVOLUTION AND IMPLICATIONS
Since its definitive and traumatic emergence in 2014, culminated with the conquest of large swathes of
territory in both Syria and Iraq, the self-proclaimed ‘Islamic State’ (IS) has been able to successfully
exploit the socio-political vulnerabilities of many middle-eastern countries, especially capitalizing on
security vacuums and disempowered populations while proposing itself as the champion of Sunni
Muslims against apostate and corrupted political regimes. In this regard, ...Read more > | 10 Pages 135.19 KB |
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 | THE ISLAMIC STATE IN AFGHANISTAN IS DOWN, BUT NOT OUT By Abdul Sayed and Colin P. Clarke
Nineteen years after the al Qaida attacks of September 11, 2001, American troops are
still deployed in Afghanistan, although there is a new enemy that has emerged to
destabilize the country—the Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISKP. The
Afghan Taliban—the same group that provided sanctuary to al Qaida as it
planned the 9/11 attacks—is on the verge of entering into a power-sharing agreement with
the Afghan government in a peace deal facilitated by the United ...Read more > | 4 Pages 399.17 KB |
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 | THE RISE AND STALL OF THE ISLAMIC STATE IN AFGHANISTAN By Casey Garret Johnson
Since the Islamic State’s Khorasan province (IS-K) emerged in Afghanistan in 2014 it has
struggled to expand beyond the handful of Afghanistan-Pakistan border districts in eastern
Nangarhar where it first took root. Though IS-K has done a good job of recruiting disaffected
low-level Taliban commanders from Nangarhar and a handful of militants from the Pakistan
tribal areas, this local support remains just that—local. Though IS-K has appointed shadow
governors and is recruiting in about ...Read more > | 16 Pages 409.17 KB |
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 | UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL - S/2020/717
I have the honour to transmit herewith the twenty-sixth report of the Analytical
Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team pursuant to resolutions 1526 (2004) and
2253 (2015), which was submitted to the Security Council Committee pursuant to
resolutions 1267 (1999), 1989 (2011) and 2253 (2015) concerning Islamic State in
Iraq and the Levant (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and associated individuals, groups,
undertakings and entities, in accordance with paragraph (a) of annex I to resolution
2368 ...Read more > | 24 Pages 388.32 KB |
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 | UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL - S/2020/415
I have the honour to transmit herewith the eleventh report of the Analytical
Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, which was submitted to the Security
Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1988 (2011) in accordance with
paragraph (a) of the annex to resolution 2501 (2019).
I should be grateful if the present letter and the report could be brought to the
attention of the members of the Security Council and issued as a document of ...Read more > | 28 Pages 446.60 KB |
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 | ISKP AND AFGHANISTAN’S FUTURE SECURITY By Saurav Sarkar
Recent ISKP attacks have attained a new level of notoriety at a time when the group is assumed to
be significantly weakened after it was pushed out of its bastions in eastern Afghanistan and with the
arrests and or killings of its top leaders. However, ISKP remains capable of executing high profile
attacks in the national capital Kabul with alarming lethality and sophistication. This policy memo
examines how ISKP may attempt to reestablish itself in a future Afghanistan landscape. It ...Read more > | 6 Pages 101.30 KB |
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 | WHAT ISIS-K MEANS FOR AFGHANISTAN By Jonathan Schroden
The Taliban hadn’t run Afghanistan for two weeks before the nation
saw its first horrific terror attack. Finger-pointing began immediately
after Thursday’s suicide bombing near the Kabul Airport. President
Joe Biden, in a speech to the nation, said America would hunt down the
perpetrators—members of the extremist group ISIS-K, which has taken root in
Afghanistan over the past several years. The Taliban blamed the United States,
not for the bombing but for failing to keep things safe ...Read more > | 6 Pages 847.36 KB |
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 | BOURGEOIS JIHAD: WHY YOUNG, MIDDLE-CLASS AFGHANS JOIN THE ISLAMIC STATE By Borhan Osman
Ever since the Islamic State in Khorasan Province emerged in Afghanistan in 2015,
policymakers and security forces have regarded it as an “imported” group that can
be defeated militarily. This approach, however, fails to take into account the longstanding and complex historical and sociological factors that make the group’s
ideology appealing to young, urban Afghan men and women. Based on interviews
with current and former members of ...Read more > | 10 Pages 1.30 MB |
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 | ISLAMIC STATE KHORASAN’S NETWORK AND ORGANIZATIONAL CAPACITY IN AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN By Amira Jadoon
When the Islamic State ofcially declared the formation of its province in Afghanistan and Pakistan
(AfPak)—Wilayat Khorasan, or Islamic State Khorasan (ISK)—in January 2015, many global and
regional policymakers dismissed the threat of an Islamic State afliate in the AfPak theater. In the
years following its formation, ISK unleashed some of the most devastating attacks in the AfPak region,
persisting in the face of U.S. airstrikes, Pakistani military operations, and clashes with the ...Read more > | 83 Pages 8.11 MB |
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 | AFGHANISTAN: ANTI-GOVERNMENT ELEMENTS (AGES) By European Asylum Support Office
The purpose of this report is to provide relevant information for the assessment of international
protection status determination, including refugee status and subsidiary protection. This report is
meant to be read in conjunction with other 2020 EASO COI reports on Afghanistan, which provide
relevant information regarding topics such as state structure and security forces, customary justice
and informal dispute resolution, targeted violence, security situation and armed ...Read more > | 56 Pages 1.55 MB |
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 | AL QAEDA AND ISLAMIC STATE AFFILIATES IN AFGHANISTAN By Congressional Research Service
Afghanistan’s geography, complex ethnic makeup, and
recent history of conflict, instability, and decentralized
government have created space for the activities of a
number of regional armed groups. This product outlines
major terrorist groups affiliated and allied with Al Qaeda
(AQ) and the Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS, ISIL, or
by the Arabic acronym Da’esh) and the complex, often
shifting relations between them and various other state and
non-state actors. These dynamics ...Read more > | 3 Pages 545.76 KB |
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 | ISLAMIC STATE KHORASAN (IS-K) By Center for Strategic and International Studies
Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K) is the Islamic
State’s Central Asian province and remains
active three years after its inception. The
Islamic State announced its expansion to the
Khorasan region in 2015, which historically
encompasses parts of modern day Iran,
Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
Despite initial skepticism about the group’s
existence from analysts and government
officials alike, IS-K has been responsible for
nearly 100 attacks against civilians in
Afghanistan ...Read more > | 9 Pages 629.05 KB |
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 | MAKING SENSE OF DAESH IN AFGHANISTAN:A SOCIAL MOVEMENT PERSPECTIVE By Katja Mielke, Nick Miszak
So-called Islamic State (IS or Daesh) in Iraq and Syria is widely interpreted as a
terrorist phenomenon. The proclamation in late January 2015 of a Wilayat Khorasan, which includes Afghanistan and Pakistan, as an IS branch is commonly
interpreted as a manifestation of Daesh s global ambition to erect an Islamic
caliphate. Its expansion implies hierarchical order, command structures and
financial flows as well as a transnational mobility of fighters, arms and recruits between Syria and Iraq, ...Read more > | 64 Pages 1.31 MB |
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