KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – The Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP), ISIS’s regional affiliate, remains a serious threat to Afghanistan and the broader region, with a sharp rise in attacks in 2024, according to a new report by a U.S. watchdog.
In its quarterly report released on Friday, the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) revealed that ISKP claimed responsibility for 60 attacks in 2024, a 40% increase from the previous year. The report highlighted that these attacks were carried out in Afghanistan, as well as in Iran, Russia, Pakistan, and Turkey.
The report, citing a 2024 UN sanctions monitoring team report, highlighted that ISKP has “enhanced its financial and logistical capabilities” with the aim of targeting locations in Europe.
According to the report, ISKP continues to target Taliban members and religious minorities, particularly Shia-Hazaras and Sufis, across Afghanistan. In the last quarter of 2024, ISKP claimed responsibility for at least 12 deadly attacks, including one that killed Taliban Minister for Refugees Khalil Haqqani and another on a Sufi shrine in Baghlan province that left at least 12 people dead.
While the Taliban claims to have dismantled ISKP and maintained security across Afghanistan, the SIGAR report suggests otherwise. The report points to a rise in ISKP attacks, the killing of Taliban’s top members, and the group’s allocation of half of its revenue to security and military recruitment as evidence of the growing threat.
Regarding other terrorist groups, including Al-Qaeda and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the report says that the Taliban continue to provide them with safe haven in Afghanistan. Citing the UN sanctions monitoring team report, it estimates that Al-Qaeda has at least 12 senior leaders in the country, while TTP maintains around 6,000 to 6,500 fighters, primarily in eastern Afghanistan.
Additionally, the SIGAR report identifies armed resistance groups, such as the Afghanistan Freedom Front (AFF) and the National Resistance Front (NRF), as significant security challenges for the Taliban. Both groups carried out at least 104 attacks against Taliban security forces in the last quarter of 2024, according to the report.
In response to the SIGAR report, the Taliban dismissed the ISKP threat as “exaggerated” and repeated their claim that the group has been dismantled and eradicated in Afghanistan.
Taliban deputy spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat, in an interview with National Radio, a state-owned station now under Taliban control, claimed that no terrorist groups are operating in Afghanistan and that reports of their presence are “baseless and untrue.”