The United States issued a warning this week amid the crush and chaos at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan: Avoid the area because of a possible ISIS terror attack.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the threat bore out. The full tragedy of the attack is still unclear, but at least 170 Afghans and 13 US service members were killed in an explosion around Kabul airport, the deadliest day for American combat troops in Afghanistan in a decade.<\/p>\n
The Islamic State in Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K, claimed responsibility. The organization is an offshoot of the original group in Iraq and Syria, and it emerged in 2015, not long after ISIS had consolidated territory in Iraq and Syria. In Afghanistan, ISIS is building toward its goal of establishing a global caliphate.<\/p>\n
Ex-Taliban filled ISIS-K\u2019s ranks early on, and the two groups have morphed into enemies, fighting each other and trying to sell their competing ideologies to recruits. The United States-led coalition in Afghanistan also battered ISIS-K in recent years \u2014 occasionally even ending up on the Taliban\u2019s side of the battle against the ISIS offshoot. Those efforts weakened the group but never dismantled it. <\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s attack was a reminder of that ongoing presence \u2014 and a reminder of ISIS\u2019s ability to sow chaos and confusion, says Andrew Mines, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University.<\/p>\n
ISIS-K is doing this right as the US is leaving because, Mines says, facilitating \u201can increased US and international footprint\u201d aligns with their bigger goal of discrediting the Taliban.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf ISIS-K can force that [international presence], it makes the Taliban both look as collaborators with the West \u2014 which is really good for ISIS-K messaging \u2014 but also like failed collaborators, right? \u2018You can\u2019t even provide security, you\u2019re incapable of ruling this nation, we [ISIS] are the viable alternative,\u2019\u201d says Mines, who is co-authoring a book on the Islamic State Khorasan with Amira Jadoon, an expert on the group. \u201cIt is almost certainly to discredit the Taliban and their ability to hold power and deliver security.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vox spoke to Mines about that rivalry with the Taliban, plus ISIS-K\u2019s origins, the possible motivations behind Thursday\u2019s attack, and what America\u2019s withdrawal from Afghanistan might mean for the terror group.<\/p>\n
Our conversation, edited for length and clarity, is below.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start with the basics. Who, or what, is ISIS-K?<\/p>\n
Andrew Mines<\/p>\n
Islamic State\u2019s Khorasan Province \u2014 ISIS-K, IS-KP, IS-K, it goes by a bunch of different acronyms. It\u2019s the official affiliate of the Islamic State group in Afghanistan. It was the official affiliate in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but in 2019, there was a split, and now it has distinct provinces for Afghanistan and Pakistan. So right now, ISIS-K is focused solely on Afghanistan. It\u2019s been recognized by the Islamic State group leaders in Iraq and Syria and was officially founded in January 2015. <\/p>\n
Jen Kirby<\/p>\n
What was the impetus for starting an ISIS offshoot in Afghanistan? <\/p>\n
Andrew Mines<\/p>\n
In 2014, there were all these background discussions going on across different local groups and emissaries on behalf of the core group in Iraq and Syria. They were traveling and reaching out to different groups that already existed in Afghanistan and Pakistan to see about exactly that \u2014 to see about establishing a local affiliate, an official beachhead for ISIS in Afghanistan and Pakistan. ISIS looks at that as the crux of its broader jihad in Central and South Asia. It really sees it as a beachhead to launch attacks and pursue the vision of the global caliphate.<\/p>\n
Jen Kirby<\/p>\n
Does ISIS-K operate independently? Or do they report to \u2014 or have their activities coordinated by \u2014 ISIS in Iraq and Syria? <\/p>\n
Andrew Mines<\/p>\n
It\u2019s kind of a mixed bag. The leader of the group, the governor of the wilayat [the province, in this case Khorasan] is nominated by others in his organization and then approved and appointed by the caliph and his delegating committee in Iraq and Syria. That nomination process means the group in Iraq and Syria, in theory, has control over the group in Afghanistan. But when it comes to the operational components, they\u2019re pretty displaced from the day-to-day. There are core operators in Afghanistan \u2014 previously in Pakistan, not just Afghanistan \u2014 that are trying to figure out how to launch attacks and all this stuff by themselves. <\/p>\n
At the strategic level, ISIS-K aims to implement much of the same the group in Iraq and Syria does. It pursues sectarian attacks against groups like the Hazaras [a predominately Shia ethnic group in Afghanistan] and Sikhs. It seeks to consolidate territorial control. In fact, that\u2019s one of the qualifications that a group needs to hit to be acknowledged by the core group in Iraq and Syria \u2014 what it calls \u201cterritorial consolidation.\u201d Once that happened, they were like, \u201cOkay, check, you can be a province now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jen Kirby<\/p>\n
You qualify, basically.<\/p>\n
Andrew Mines<\/p>\n
You qualify, right? There are a few others on that list, but that\u2019s one of the big ones. <\/p>\n
The other biggest one is coming forward with a leader that can be appointed by the delegating committee. It looks different in Somalia, it looks different in Yemen, it looks different in Afghanistan, but whichever groups or sets of individuals are coming together need to nominate a leader that the core leadership can vet first and then appoint.<\/p>\n
Jen Kirby<\/p>\n
This is probably not the best example for a terrorist organization, but it almost sounds like franchising? You have an ISIS branch in Afghanistan and then you have the corporate headquarters in Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\n
Andrew Mines<\/p>\n
I mean, that\u2019s exactly it. One of my colleagues calls it the \u201croutinization\u201d of the Islamic State movement.<\/p>\n
Jen Kirby<\/p>\n
So who is in charge of ISIS-K right now?<\/p>\n
Andrew Mines<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a great article by one of our colleagues, Abdul Sayed, in Lawfare that addresses this issue. Right now, it\u2019s a man by the name of Shahab al-Muhajir. He\u2019s believed to be a former and experienced Haqqani network [an Islamist militant group affiliated with the Taliban] operative. He has a lot of experience with the makings of a terrorist organization, when it goes from a low-level insurgency, and it\u2019s trying to pursue re-expansion. He\u2019s a bit of an urban warfare expert.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also reportedly appointed as the first non-Afghan or non-Pakistani national to head the group. That\u2019s pretty significant, to be headed by a non-Afghan, or non-Pakistani, or non-Pashtun is a pretty big deal. He\u2019s tasked with overseeing the group through this period of relative decline and relative uncertainty.<\/p>\n
Jen Kirby<\/p>\n
What is Shahab al-Muhajir\u2019s background?<\/p>\n
Andrew Mines<\/p>\n
Other ISIS-K leaders were super well-known, and through ISIS\u2019s own propaganda, they did these backgrounds on the first governor [Hafiz Saeed Khan]. They did this whole interview in ISIS\u2019s main magazine with him. <\/p>\n
This newest governor [Shahab al-Muhajir] was shrouded in a little bit of uncertainty. It took him a while to issue his first statement. There was confusion about whether they were trying to hide his accent because he\u2019s not Afghani, not Pakistani. So there\u2019s a lot of mystery when he was first announced as governor.<\/p>\n
Jen Kirby<\/p>\n
And Shahab al-Muhajir has been governor since when?<\/p>\n
Andrew Mines<\/p>\n
Since 2020.<\/p>\n
Jen Kirby<\/p>\n
Okay, so he\u2019s fairly new to the job then. But who exactly makes up ISIS-K\u2019s ranks?<\/p>\n
Andrew Mines<\/p>\n
ISIS-K starts in 2015 \u2014 and, obviously, those discussions [about its formation] were going on in the background in 2014. This was a time when there\u2019s a little bit of disgruntlement with the Taliban as a movement \u2014 especially once news got out that [Taliban founder and leader] Mullah Omar was dead and had been dead for some time.<\/p>\n
ISIS, as an entity, had just established the global caliphate, and that was a huge messaging boost. The Taliban, as an entity, their aspiration is for a government focused only on Afghanistan, within the boundaries of Afghanistan. When these guys get in fights with each other and when they diss each other in their propaganda and their narrative messaging in how they recruit people, that\u2019s how ISIS-K brands the Taliban. They brand them as \u201cfilthy nationalists.\u201d <\/p>\n
Jen Kirby<\/p>\n
It\u2019s like ISIS was the cool, new, hip group in town. The Taliban has been around for a while; it\u2019s kind of fusty, and so ISIS-K was trying to capitalize on their success in Iraq and Syria to recruit in Afghanistan. <\/p>\n
Andrew Mines<\/p>\n
Definitely. We\u2019ve got founding members from the Pakistani Taliban. We\u2019ve got founding members from the Afghan Taliban. We\u2019ve got members from the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan, and then over time, a bunch of other groups start to join them. <\/p>\n
But what kind of happens in these first few months and, then over time, is that the Taliban catch on to this really quickly, and they start to clamp down on all of their commanders and anybody who\u2019s thinking about joining ISIS-K. <\/p>\n
Really, 2015, was a pretty crazy year that saw, across Afghanistan, in different provinces, major Taliban commanders switching flags and joining ISIS-K. This is a huge pivotal moment because the Taliban realizes if the dominoes start to fall, ISIS-K becomes the preeminent jihadist organization in the country.<\/p>\n
Jen Kirby<\/p>\n
I do want to talk more about the relationship with the Taliban, but when we talk about ISIS-K 2021, how big is it? <\/p>\n
Andrew Mines<\/p>\n
Starting in 2016 to 2018 is when the coalition really hammers down on ISIS-K. That piggybacks off the Taliban routing ISIS-K in different places. Sometimes they coincide. Sometimes it\u2019s just the Taliban; sometimes it\u2019s just the coalition. <\/p>\n
In one sense or another, by 2019, the group is pretty decimated \u2014 at the end of 2019, over 1,400 fighters and their families surrendered to government forces in northeast Afghanistan. This is really where we start to see this messaging, especially by the Afghan government, that ISIS is defeated in the country, and that there\u2019s no more ISIS here. That\u2019s when we really see ISIS-K go back to this survival mode, like low-level insurgency. <\/p>\n
At that point, a lot of ISIS-K\u2019s recruitment messaging is starting to localize. Historically, a lot of its rank-and-file members have come from across the border in Pakistan. More recently, there\u2019s other good evidence of recruitment of young urban Afghans who have become disillusioned with the peace process and just don\u2019t think it\u2019s going anywhere. So ISIS-K is really kind of a mix of the core hardened guys, who managed to survive the onslaught of coalition targeting, and then newer recruits, and then attack operation cells spread throughout different Afghan cities.<\/p>\n
Jen Kirby<\/p>\n
I do remember in 2017 when the US dropped the \u201cmother of all bombs\u201d on ISIS caves in Afghanistan, which stands out as the big example, in my mind, of that US-led campaign.<\/p>\n
Andrew Mines<\/p>\n
It was a big bomb. The purpose of it was to clear this cave tunnel complex to allow forces to get into a valley where they had been set up, basically, since their inception in 2015. But it\u2019s also a messaging thing in its own right, which is, \u201cthis is what happens, and so be prepared, because we\u2019re going to use this kind of ordnance on you guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jen Kirby<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s talk about this strategic rivalry. Why are ISIS-K and the Taliban enemies?<\/p>\n
Andrew Mines<\/p>\n
The biggest one is over the distinction between emirate and caliphate. This goes all the way back to 2015. There were actually talks between senior leadership in the Taliban and [ISIS leader Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi himself and his delegating committee. [The Taliban is] basically like, \u201cwhy are you instructing these guys to do this? Call your guys off.\u201d And Baghdadi is like, \u201cWell, recognize me as caliph and then we\u2019ll be good, right?\u201d So that beef goes back a long time. But the crux of it is really about emirate or caliphate \u2014 global movement or national confines.<\/p>\n
Jen Kirby<\/p>\n
The emirate is Taliban-style and caliphate is ISIS-style?<\/p>\n
Andrew Mines<\/p>\n
Yes, exactly.<\/p>\n
Jen Kirby<\/p>\n
Okay, and during this past five-plus years, the United States was bombing ISIS-K targets, and the Taliban and ISIS-K were also fighting on the ground.<\/p>\n
Andrew Mines<\/p>\n
Yes, extensively. <\/p>\n
Jen Kirby<\/p>\n
And what are the dynamics of that fighting between the Taliban and ISIS-K?<\/p>\n
Andrew Mines<\/p>\n
The dynamics of that took a bunch of forms. It was really a bit more positional fighting, so the Taliban attacked ISIS-K positions. That went all the way down to skirmishes in the outskirts of districts and in rural areas, to targeted attacks against individual units and individual fighters. <\/p>\n
But the majority of ISIS-K attack campaigns, in late 2020 and throughout this year, have been focused on some of the same stuff that we saw in Iraq and Syria, which is called a harvesting campaign \u2014 which is a horrible name \u2014 but that\u2019s how they view it. <\/p>\n
ISIS-K goes after journalists, they go after aid workers, they go after intelligence and security personnel that they can identify. They go after government facilities and government targets and anything they can do to prove that the governing power is not able to provide security to anybody, and to sow confusion and chaos. <\/p>\n
Jen Kirby<\/p>\n
The US and the Taliban both don\u2019t want ISIS-K in Afghanistan. I\u2019m wondering if there was any coordination or collaboration on ISIS targets during the war at all? Or do we just not know that information? <\/p>\n
Andrew Mines<\/p>\n
It\u2019s actually a really difficult question. Wesley Morgan is really the guy on this one. He wrote this piece in the Washington Post about how there was unofficial coordination. It wasn\u2019t cooperation, per se, but it\u2019s basically, \u201cwe\u2019re about to hit ISIS-K here, just so you know.\u201d <\/p>\n
It falls very far short of strategic cooperation between the Afghan Taliban and the US armed forces and Afghan forces to root out ISIS. But it\u2019s in both of their interests, and when made sense, it seems like there was kind of unofficial cooperation.<\/p>\n
Jen Kirby<\/p>\n
Now we just saw the Taliban go on this rout through Afghanistan. What has ISIS-K been up to in the last few months as this was unfolding?<\/p>\n
Andrew Mines<\/p>\n
If you look at ISIS-K attack numbers, in terms of their operational tempo, it was a lot lower than 2020 and early 2021. A lot of people interpret that as they\u2019re either lying low to see what happens, or they\u2019re pooling their resources and just biding their time for what we saw at the Kabul airport on Thursday. <\/p>\n
The question becomes: What is their interest in conducting an attack like we saw Thursday?<\/p>\n
Jen Kirby<\/p>\n
And so what is their interest in conducting that attack we saw?<\/p>\n
Andrew Mines<\/p>\n
The first is simply just do the same thing that\u2019s coming out of the Iraq and Syria textbook, which is to sow chaos and confusion and create those conditions that insurgent groups like these try to fill. <\/p>\n
The second is to encourage and, in their view, hopefully facilitate an increased US and international footprint, which would be reneging on the withdrawal process. <\/p>\n
If ISIS-K can force that, it makes the Taliban both look like collaborators with the West \u2014 which is really good for ISIS-K messaging \u2014 but also like failed collaborators, right? \u201cYou can\u2019t even provide security, you\u2019re incapable of ruling this nation, we [ISIS] are the viable alternative.\u201d It is almost certainly to discredit the Taliban and their ability to hold power and deliver security.<\/p>\n