Monitoring Desk: The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) is reportedly mending its relations with the Islamic State Khorasan (ISK) Province, a regional branch of the jihadist group and a franchisee of Jihadis who recently took over Syria. Islamic State (IS) is mostly based in South-Central Asia, primarily in Afghanistan.
According to reports IEA and ISK are negotiating to cool down tension between them and persuading ISK to only operate in areas bordering Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, vacating southern Afghanistan for the time being. Available information suggests that the Taliban and ISIS follow the same religious school of thought having the same targets of global jihad. The power struggle between them can be settled down by demarking areas of operations. It is believed that the Taliban are already in contact with Ahmad al-Sharaa, known until last month by his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.
ISIS–-K seeks to replace current governments within the historic Khorasan region to establish a caliphate across South and Central Asia, governed under a strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law as of IEA. International groups having an eye on Jihadism and extremism believe that the religious-political philosophy of almost all Jihadis is to replace democracies in modern states with the purist rule of life and ISIS, ISK, Afghan Taliban, Boku Haram, TTP, and other groups are just brand names of the same factory and they intermingled, intertwine, support and operation together wherever it is needed.
It may be remembered that in August 2017, ISIS–K and the Taliban jointly attacked several villages inhabited by the Shia Hazara minority in northern Afghanistan, resulting in the mass murder of Hazara men, women, and children within Sar-e Pol Province. Some of its most notable attacks include the 2021 Kabul airport attack that killed 13 American military personnel and at least 169 Afghans in Kabul during the U.S. withdrawal from the country, twin suicide bombings in July 2018 that killed at least 131 at election rallies in Pakistan, twin bombings in July 2016 that killed 97 Shia Hazara protestors in downtown Kabul, and a suicide bombing in July 2023 that killed 63 in Khar Pakistan.
