The Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan is seeking to exploit growing social and sectarian rifts by recruiting disenfranchised minorities and Salafi Muslims repressed by the Taliban, the International Crisis Group said in a report released Wednesday.
Despite a sharp decline in domestic operations this year, Islamic State-Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K, remains a potent transnational threat, the report found. Though weakened militarily inside Afghanistan — where Taliban forces have killed or captured many of its senior commanders — the group has intensified efforts to stage attacks abroad and to rebuild its ranks by preying on communities marginalized by Taliban rule.
The report, titled “The Islamic State in Afghanistan: A Waning Jihadist Threat?”, warns that ISIS-K has refocused its strategy on ideological recruitment, targeting Salafi clerics suppressed by Taliban crackdowns and ethnic minorities — including Hazaras, Tajiks and Uzbeks — who are increasingly disillusioned with the group’s ethnically skewed governance.
“Rather than disappearing, ISIS-K is adapting,” the report said, noting the group’s efforts to cast the Taliban as a nationalist movement that has abandoned global jihad in favor of political accommodation. “The group is exploiting the Taliban’s own legitimacy gap.”
While ISIS-K has long vied for influence within Afghanistan’s fragmented militant landscape, its ambitions now extend far beyond the country’s borders. After the Taliban retook power in August 2021, ISIS-K pivoted quickly: capitalizing on a security vacuum, it freed hundreds of prisoners, ramped up attacks and began cultivating external operations.
Since then, the group has orchestrated or inspired high-casualty assaults in Russia, Iran and Pakistan — including a deadly bombing in March 2024 at a Moscow concert hall that killed nearly 150 people. The Islamic State’s central command later claimed responsibility for the attack, although Russian authorities blamed Ukraine.
Such incidents have heightened concerns among Western and regional security agencies that ISIS-K could regroup or align with other ISIS offshoots to mount further international strikes. Crisis Group analysts warned that a handful of high-profile attacks could have outsized geopolitical repercussions, even if the group lacks large-scale military capability.
The Crisis Group says that since reclaiming control of Afghanistan, the Taliban have regarded ISIS-K as one of their most serious security threats. After initially deploying indiscriminate crackdowns — including extrajudicial killings and the arrest of religious clerics — the Taliban have shifted toward more targeted counterterrorism operations.
The campaign has yielded some success. Several senior ISIS-K leaders, including its intelligence chief, Qari Fateh, and judiciary head, Maulawi Ziauddin, have been killed over the past two years. Attacks inside Afghanistan have declined significantly since early 2024.
Yet the group remains agile. Its decentralized structure and ability to exploit local grievances allow it to regenerate even after major setbacks. The report notes that heavy-handed Taliban repression — particularly in eastern provinces like Nangarhar — has, paradoxically, pushed some Salafi communities closer to ISIS-K rather than alienating them from it.
ISIS-K’s ideological appeal has also expanded into ethnic and religious fault lines. In provinces where Salafi enclaves have historically clashed with the Taliban — both during the 1990s and today — the militant group has used propaganda to portray itself as the true defender of Islamic purity, according to the analysis.
According to the report, the group accuses the Taliban of collaborating with China and betraying the cause of jihad by seeking diplomatic recognition. This messaging, the report said, is designed to attract younger militants disillusioned with the Taliban’s limited vision of Islamic governance.
ISIS-K’s recruitment drive increasingly extends to ethnic Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras, many of whom feel excluded from the Taliban’s predominantly Pashtun power structure. While most of these groups have no ideological affinity with ISIS, Crisis Group analysts warn that social and political alienation may outweigh doctrinal barriers.
International coordination and new risks
The report says that though the Taliban remain hostile to ISIS-K, the group’s transnational turn has complicated the security landscape. Its commanders, often of Central Asian origin, operate in diffuse networks across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Türkiye and Russia. The group has claimed or been linked to attacks in more than half a dozen countries since 2022.
Intelligence coordination between Western states, regional powers and — to a limited extent — the Taliban has improved, the report noted. But further cooperation is essential. Crisis Group recommended greater intelligence-sharing with Central Asian governments, cautious engagement with the Taliban, and a shift in the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS toward policing and financial disruption rather than military action, the report says.
“The threat has changed, but it hasn’t disappeared,” the report concluded. “IS-KP is no longer fighting for terrain — it is fighting for narrative, recruitment and reach.”
