Voice of America, 10 March 2017
Voice America article quotes two AAN dispatches on how ISKP operates, messages and recruits. First it quotes Borhan Osman’s dispatch on the ISKP’s cells in Kabul:
The Kabul-based Afghanistan Analysts Network, in a dispatch published on its website last year, claimed to have some evidence of at least three ISKP cells operating in Kabul.
“Over the past eighteen months, AAN has been consistently hearing stories of young men from Kabul having adopted the IS ideology and joining its ‘battlefields’ in Nangarhar, Afghanistan, as well as in Iraq and Syria,” the dispatch published in October of last year claimed.
Then it quotes Borhan Osman’s dispatch on ISKP’s battle for minds:
ISKP operates a deft propaganda machine including social media, videos and literature, as well as an FM radio channel that keeps popping back up every time it is knocked down by NATO or Afghan forces. The FM can be heard in parts of the eastern provinces of Nangarhar and Kunar.
“ISKP’s romanticization of living as one of its fighters is unparalleled in the jihadist media in Afghanistan,” according to another dispatch published on AAN’s website.
Anecdotal evidence from various parts of Afghanistan suggests a slow but steady stream of new IS recruits.
Revisions:
This article was last updated on 9 Mar 2020
