During a UN Security Council meeting on August 8, 2024, Vladimir Voronkov, the UN Undersecretary-General for Counter-Terrorism, named IS-K (Islamic State-Khorasan) group as the “greatest external terrorist threat” to Europe. This is at a time when its recruitment efforts and financial and logistical capabilities have been rationalized, particularly in the last six months, mainly with the help of Afghan and Central Asian diaspora communities.

IS-K has emerged as a powerful global menace

The rise of IS-K creates a serious threat to regional stability, especially for Afghanistan and its neighbors. The Taliban boasted that it has diminished the operational capacity of IS-K; however, the terrorist group is still gaining resources and recruits from Afghan and Central Asian diasporas. Voronkov warned that unless advanced counter-terrorism strategies with cooperation by the neighboring states are formed, Afghanistan will revert to being a “hotbed of terrorism.”

Fears of IS-K began to mount after the horrific incident that occurred in Russia in March 2024, where the outfit was blamed for an attack on a concert hall in Krasnogorsk, killing 144 people. The claims that IS-K has emerged as such a powerful global menace, without having even a single stronghold in Afghanistan, invite critical questions: How did IS-K become so much powerful? Why is the Taliban regime unable to rein in the group? And finally, is this threat assessment about IS-K match the ground realities in Afghanistan where it is claimed to be based in?

Formed in 2015 as an adversary to the Afghan Taliban, IS-K first clashed with them. The Taliban tried to undermine the influence of IS-K but was further challenged by the recruitment of the TTP members by IS-K. From 2016 to 2019, the Pakistan Army’s anti-terrorism campaign dismantled the TTP strongholds in the country; hence, the TTP was forced to relocate to Afghanistan. During this period many TTP fighters joined IS-K. It wasn’t until August 2021 that IS-K posed any fair challenge to the Taliban’s authority once they regained control in Afghanistan.

The Taliban boasted that it has diminished the operational capacity of IS-K

During this time, Islamabad was always pressing Kabul to curtail the terror activities of TTP inside Pakistan from Afghan territory. Contrarily, the Taliban’s reaction was beyond expectations; they declared TTP as an internal matter of Pakistan despite knowing that the banned outfit’s leadership was residing in Afghanistan. Afghan Taliban practically refused to fulfill the promise according to the Doha Accord of not allowing Afghan soil to be used against any neighboring country. The TTP then swore allegiance to the Taliban, which further complicated Pakistan’s efforts to reduce cross-border terrorism.

The earliest contact between IS-K and TTP was limited to initial cooperation and competition based on their shared goals and the varying landscape of the turf war against the Afghan Taliban. On an ideological front, the Salafi-jihadism of TTP and IS-K made for a good basis in terms of logistics, particularly during joint operations against Pakistani security forces.

As the time went on, though, the Afghan Taliban’s increased collaboration with TTP, after it announced allegiance to their leader, ushered in a decline in IS-K influence in Afghanistan. Hundreds of its fighters switched sides and some of the commanders were eliminated in operations conducted by the special forces of the Afghan Taliban.

A UN report dated July 26, 2020, reported: “The IS-K suffered significant reversals in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar and Kunar provinces.” Despite minimal Afghan government actions against IS-K over the last two years, it continued proclaiming IS-K as an imminent threat to the world, presenting their government as a counter-terrorism partner to the international community. There have been repeated attacks by IS-K against Hazaras since August 2021, causing many casualties, and some even suspect the Afghan Taliban’s complicity in these attacks.

IS-K is a diplomatic ploy the Taliban exploits to deflect international criticism

IS-K, some counterterrorism experts increasingly believe, is a diplomatic ploy the Taliban exploits to deflect international criticism of human rights abuses. This further-ensuring alliance makes TTP an operationally quite effective arm for cross-border terrorism by the Afghan Taliban, a serious security threat even beyond the region, with Pakistan being the prime target.

Several incidents inside Pakistan have been carried out by TTP but for those IS-K has taken the claim. For example, a suicide bombing on a political rally in Bajaur killed more than 60 people in July 2023. Similarly, in September 2023, another suicide attack claimed 52 lives in the Mastung district of Balochistan.

Investigations into all these attacks established that the terror acts had been planned and controlled by the TTP leadership in Afghanistan. In this regard, in November 2023, Islamabad passed a warning to the Afghan Taliban to either stand with Pakistan or the TTP.

However, it seems that the Afghan Taliban have inclined more towards TTP and formed a serious security threat to Pakistan, which has been fighting for the past 22 years. Much like in the post-USSR era, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan left Pakistan alone to deal with the fallout of this hasty decision. The continued coalition between TTP and the Afghan Taliban is far graver a threat to regional security and stability than IS-K alone.

The Afghan Taliban declared TTP as an internal matter of Pakistan

It is high time for the world to revisit the threat assessment emanating from Afghanistan where IS-K is just a bogyman used by TTP and their Afghan Taliban patrons for strategic communication where Afghan Taliban present themselves as the harbingers of some peace and order in the country.

They want the world to ignore all the human rights abuses being carried out by the Kabul regime. TTP is acting as an operational arm primarily targeting Pakistan but has capabilities to carry out terror activities beyond Pakistan and Afghanistan. TTP is the real existential threat to global peace and security and ignoring this threat will only put global peace at greater peril.