Islamic State, Khorasan Province (2015- ) is also known in English as:
- ISIS-K (CNN, NPR, New York Times, Washington Post, ABC News, Yahoo, Democracy Now, President Biden).
- ISKP (Economist, Guardian, Aljazeera).
- IS-K (BBC, CSIS).
- ISIL-KP (Wikipedia, UN).
By whatever name, it is the branch of the Islamic State or ISIS in Afghanistan and neighbouring countries. They are the ones who bombed the Kabul airport last week (on August 26th 2021), killing up to 170.
In 2017 when President Trump dropped the Mother of all Bombs in Afghanistan, it was dropped on ISIS-K.
Khorasan: They call the region Khorasan, the name it had during the glory days of the Caliphate (Muslim empire) that they want to bring back. The name also calls to mind the words of the Prophet Muhammad:
“If you see the black banners coming from Khurasan, join that army, even if you have to crawl over ice; no power will be able to stop them. And they will finally reach Baitul Maqdis [Jerusalem], where they will erect their flags.”
Size: 1,000 to 10,000, made up of Afghans, Arabs, Pakistanis, and others. As ISIS lost ground in Iraq and Syria, some of its fighters joined the Khorasan branch. So have some of the more extreme members of the Taliban. ISIS-K recruits veteran jihadists and alienated Muslim youth in the cities. From 2015 to 2020, the US killed many of their leaders and kept their numbers in check.
Tactics: Bombings mainly, even suicide bombings. Assassination and kidnapping too. Aims to create doubt and uncertainty about the government and other fighting forces.
Targets: police, military, government, journalists, aid workers, Shia Muslim schoolgirls, even maternity wards. Mainly in eastern Afghanistan, but also in Pakistan, India and (so far unsuccessfully) Europe.
Enemies: Taliban, Shia Muslims, the West.
- It wants Afghanistan as a beach head for the Caliphate. The Taliban, who took it over in 2021, are not jihadists but “filthy nationalists” who sold out to (= made peace with) the West in “posh hotels” in Doha, Qatar. The Taliban outnumbers ISIS-K by at least 7 to 1. But in the past ISIS-K was mainly kept in check by US air power. If the Taliban asks the US for help, it will be a propaganda victory for ISIS-K.
- Their terrorist attack in Europe in 2018 was thwarted.
- It wants to lift “the Black Banner above Jerusalem and the White House”.
Funding: ISIS, and presumably smuggling: they are based in Nangarhar, near where drugs and people are smuggled in and out of Pakistan.
Ideology: Salafist and jihadist: They want to fight a holy war to restore the Muslim world to its glory days of the Caliphate in the 600s, militarily and spiritually. The appeal is to a Mythic Past: Make Islam Great Again. They want to return to the old-old-time religion, which they imagine as fundamentalist, strict and pure. In fact, fundamentalism was rare before 1900. Sees the Taliban as too soft on Shia Muslims, but ISIS-K’s strict sharia laws do not seem to win hearts and minds among mom-and-pop Afghans.
– Abagond, 2021.
See also:
- Islamic State (ISIS)
- Khorasan (خراسان)
- Afghanistan (افغانستان)
- jihad
- Salafism
- Islamism
- The Mythic Past
- fundamentalism
- Shia Islam
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Abagond 
i want to go deep on the ideology
males who are extremely religious and extremely violent
in conflict with other extremely religious and extremely violent males
now As i have stated previously the god concept is the biggest lie
and america and europe are as extremely religious and extremely violent
as are muslims
they both violently insist that a old white male is the creator and ruler of the world
all the men need females to be subordinate and view any equality as a threat to their male identity.
but this absurd and destructive pattern of social life
may well find it too may collapse from the same exposure
a 24/7 global media founded on the internet.
the internet or social media in its current form
is like a expanding all seeing eye
which almost everyone shares
you regular get large groups lead by violent men
police and military are their favorite types of groups
and they always try to lie and deny their brutal and unjust violence
but the video proves they lie again and again
but the fault lies not just in them but in their victims as well
for being weak ignorant or naïve esp the old who are
suppose to have accumulated wisdom
but instead only show the obvious effects of wear and tear as
they live on to meet the most fortunate end I know in this life
to die of simply that wear and tear
whether alone or with love ones
rather then painful illness ,unforeseen accident or
the worse and most horrible
though I have legions of this event on film and in book
for our entertainment and enjoyment
assault and murder.
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for repetition
god – dog – slur for female b–th
rhymes with witch
hitch
snitch
glitch
but the gender of a dog is irrelevant if it barks bites or you pet it
maybe its because
we refer to sexual intercourse as engaging in something unfair and harsh
thus we say mother i.e female f–ker
but father f–ker doesn’t quite sound right does it?
we should ask why we talk this way and why such words are used.
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What does the Taliban have to do with ISIS? They are more like foes, not friends.
Also, Taliban faces a non-ISIS resistance at their ground.
To quote,
‘The Taliban faces its strongest resistance in the north of Afghanistan, where a resistance army is growing in the Panjshir Valley.
The valley has long been a stronghold in Afghanistan, thanks to its natural defences, and has never fallen to the Taliban or the Soviets’ (c)
https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/afghanistan-withdrawal-antitaliban-resistance-grows-in-panjshir-valley-as-soldiers-clash/news-story/835aba7bd4098501aaed03a92754b84d
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Good info.
“Make Islam Great Again”—Funny but accurate.
In the aftermath of Twin Towers collapse, Americans asked “why do they hate us”?….Well, many many years ago….Muslims also asked a similar question—“why are we colonized”? The answer they came up with is that they had “lost their way”, they had become corrupted and they had corrupted their religion. This led to them being colonized.
Such a conclusion meant—they had to “find” the right path—by going back to the origins—and this led to the various “Purists”/Islamic revivalist movements.
But the past they look at is a myth/illusion. (real history is messy)
Sharia—Salafi’s follow a version of Islamic law that is from the Hanbali School,
Afghans mostly follow the Hanafi school along with (old)Tribal law…(and perhaps any leftover elements of secular laws?)
One of a few (?) Islamic revivalist movements coming out of the Hanafi school is apparently Deoband (?) so what role, if any, they might play…might be interesting—(they are also funded and influenced by the Saudi’s so they are problematic……)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deobandi
and there might be players in Pakistan too?…..not to mention…the various Afghan tribal groups …tajiks, turkmen, pashto, hazars,…etc…..
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