The 'K' in ISIS-K stands for Khorasan, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria's alliance in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where US forces have fought al-Qaida militants and Taliban since 2001.
In January 2015, former members of the Pakistani Taliban, Afghan Taliban and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan formed ISIS-K as a group of several Islamic extremist organisations committed to supporting the radical ideals of the Islamic State and establishing an Afghan presence on behalf of ISIS.
Since January 2017, ISIS-K has been responsible for nearly 100 attacks against civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and about 250 clashes with the US, Afghan and Pakistani security forces.
According to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, ISIS-K is a core group of around 1,500 to 2,200 fighters in Nangahar and Konar provinces of Afghanistan and smaller cells spread across the country.
Since its inception, ISIS-K gradually tried to consolidate territorial dominance in several rural districts in north and northeast Afghanistan. Initially, ISIS-K launched attacks at public places, government buildings and institutions and against minority groups and in major cities across Pakistan and Afghanistan.
By 2018, ISIS-K emerged as one of the top four deadliest terrorist outfits in the world, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace’s Global Terrorism Index.
So far, the group has received funding in excess of $100 million and training from the Islamic State group’s core organisational body in Iraq and Syria.
On August 28, 2021, an ISIS-Khorasan planner was killed in a "counterterrorism" operation conducted by US military forces in the Nangahar province of Afghanistan, a day after a terror attack in Kabul killed scores of people including 13 US troops.
In late 2019 and early 2020, ISIS-K suffered territorial and leadership losses to the US-led coalition and its Afghan allies. As a result, over 1,400 of its fighters and their families surrendered to the Afghan government.
ISIS-K and Taliban
ISIS-Khorasan and Taliban share a hostile relationship due to some ideological differences and rivalry for resources. ISIS-K considers the Taliban as “filthy nationalists” with ambitions only to form a government confined to the boundaries of Afghanistan.
According to ISIS-K, the Taliban's motives contradict the Islamic State's goal of establishing a global caliphate.
