In 2019, however, also thanks to the decision to enter the narco-traffic business, Isis-K raised its head. Thanks to higher revenues, he managed to regain possession of various territories and today his presence has extended to several provinces (in Nangarhar, Kunar, Nuristan, Badakhshan).
An international terror brigade
It is difficult to know the number of his fighters. There is talk of 1,500 militiamen. A sort of international terror brigade that, while attracting the Taliban closest to al-Qaeda and opposed to any peace agreement with Kabul (including Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan and what remains of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan ), on the other hand it worked as a magnet for extremist groups fleeing Syria (especially Central Asian jihadists). The attempt of the new Taliban leadership to show a new face, less extreme and more collaborative with the West (however, the facts must still follow the words), is still causing a new wave of defections among the Taliban groups closest to the -Qaeda.
The priority of ISIS-K has never been a secret: to destroy the influence of the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan and from there to build a new great base of global jihadism, therefore anti-Western.
The ideology of the Caliphate
Its ideology is the same as that of the Caliphate. Exporting jihad to the world and making a scorched earth for apostates and infidels, or all those who (Muslim or not) are different from them for any reason.
This is why the most heinous attacks by ISIS-K were directed against the Hazara ethnic group, the Afghans with Mongolian features, mostly Shiites, who live in the central region of Hazarajat. Against them, and other religious minorities, they have achieved an unthinkable brutality. From the kamikaze attack in March against a Sikh temple (25 pilgrims killed), to those in May in the wards of the maternity ward of a hospital in Kabul (16 deaths including children) where Doctors Without Borders operated, to the attack on a funeral , up to the gruesome massacre of young students, especially Hazara, The victims were 55 victims, almost all were between 11 and 15 years old. The fear is that it will not be the last. In the new Afghanistan, ISIS-K has found fertile ground.