NEW DELHI: The Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), the local chapter of ISIS, is increasingly becoming a significant security threat in South Asia.
Kabul-based agency sources dealing with the security situation in the region have warned that the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), the local chapter of the ISIS, is increasingly becoming a significant security threat in South Asia, as they continue to operate from their “birthplace” in North-west Pakistan, particularly in areas that are adjacent to Afghanistan. This includes parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, which provide a strategic base for their operations against both local and international targets.
Sources, who are not authorised to speak to the media, but get first-hand knowledge of the activities of ISKP, claimed that ISKP’s operations within Pakistan, particularly in tribal areas like South Waziristan and Balochistan, have increased substantially including the execution of multiple IED attacks targeting both civilian and military assets. In this month alone, the ISKP has claimed to have carried out three separate attacks in South Waziristan, resulting in injuries to several individuals, including prominent tribal leaders and police officers.
Sources emphasized that these developments must be taken seriously as ISKP’s growing capability to conduct coordinated strikes and its increasing operational freedom in these areas suggest that the threat will extend beyond Pakistan and Afghanistan. Dismissing it as merely a local issue confined to Kabul could prove to be a costly oversight.
The terrorist group is now flourishing in the tribal regions of Pakistan, allegedly with the support of the Pakistan’s military and its intelligence agency, the ISI, complicating the Taliban’s efforts to consolidate power in Afghanistan and destabilizing the region further.
Apart from using ISKP as one of its local arms to destabilise Afghanistan, the sources alleged that it is also being put into service to eliminate the leadership of Tehreek-E-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as Pakistan Taliban.
As per pro-Pakistan military social media accounts, more than three TTP functionaries have been killed in the past few months by unidentified individuals.
Inputs gathered by relevant agencies show that Sanaullah Ghafari, who also goes by the name of Shahab al-Muhajir, ISKP’s high-profile leader, is operating from Balochistan after evading a Taliban-led operation in Kunar province.
Ghafari, who was wrongly assumed to have been killed a few years ago, is the prime suspect in the Moscow concert hall terror attack in March 2024, in which 130 people were killed by ISKP cadres.
The said attack has highlighted how resourceful ISKP was and how easy it was for it to carry out such a large scale attack in a separate country.
The rise of ISKP and the threats posed by Ghafri, have also not missed the attention of US-based officials and agencies who have already announced $10 million for information on the ISKP head.
Sources in the Afghanistan establishment claimed that last year the Taliban security apparatus had come very close to catching Ghafri but he managed to escape into Pakistan. Ever since he has been operating from there with the support of officials in uniform, while changing locations at the local level.