The Islamic State’s Afghanistan-based affiliate is emerging as a global menace

ISIS-K’s bombing in Moscow shows the group's increasingly deadly reach.

Javed Ali | DefenseOne.com | 3-25-24

News of the recent horrific attack in Moscow by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria—Khorasan Province (also known as ISIS-K) is putting a spotlight on a group that was already notorious for its brutal methods in Afghanistan and the broader Middle East. The operation in Moscow arrived a few weeks after U.S. officials warned that credible intelligence suggested an attack was brewing in Russia. Still, it appears to be a dramatic escalation of the group’s ability to launch complex attacks well outside its home base in Afghanistan. 

Late last year, people linked to ISIS-K were arrested and charged with planning to bomb a cathedral in Cologne, Germany. In January, ISIS-K claimed responsibility for a large attack in Kerman, Iran, carried out by two suicide bombers at the funeral procession for former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani. A few days ago, German authorities also announced that two other people with ISIS-K ties and of Afghan descent were arrested as they plotted to attack the Swedish parliament in response to Quran burnings in Sweden last year. 

These developments suggest ISIS-K is able to recruit, train, and deploy operatives outside Afghanistan for plots hundreds if not thousands of miles away. The Moscow attack in particular seems troubling. It required fairly complex preparation, including travel without being denied entry and organization without being detected by Russian intelligence or law enforcement. And it involved four people who mimicked active-shooter tactics used against mass gatherings in Mumbai in November 2008 (carried out by the Pakistan-based terrorist group Lashkar e-Tayyiba using trainees from Pakistan) and Paris in November 2015 (carried about by ISIS in Iraq and Syria using ISIS sympathizers in Belgium and France). 

Against this complex backdrop of ISIS attacks and disrupted plots, U.S. warnings about different threats, and the realities on the ground in Afghanistan following the U.S. and Western military withdrawal and return of the Taliban government as the ruling power there, what does this all mean? How can the international community work to prevent additional attacks from a group that now looks far more dangerous than even just a few years before? In order to answer these and related questions, we need to look at the origins of ISIS-K going back nearly a decade.

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We stand at a critical juncture where the echoes of past cover-ups reverberate with the grim reality that history is repeating itself. The truth about Benghazi, where Al Qaeda spearheaded the attack, has been shrouded in deception. Today, a similar sinister plot veils Afghanistan's tumultuous landscape. What's presented as a domestic or tribal conflict is, in actuality, a battle between the Northern Resistance fighting against foreign terrorists, against Al Qaeda.

The Taliban, initially formed to fortify the global terrorist network in cooperation with Al Qaeda, has served its purpose by creating a unified structure that will include Hamas and Hezbollah, as the umbrella organization for all aspiring terror groups.

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