Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: Daesh

Daesh

‘Mother of All Bombs’ Dropped on ISKP: Assessing the aftermath

Borhan Osman • Kate Clark • Martine van Bijlert •

American and Afghan forces have arrived at the site of the massive US bomb blast that targeted a complex of tunnels and caves in Achin, Nangarhar, the stronghold of the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP), on 13 April 2017. Journalists and other independent observers have not yet been allowed to enter the area, so information […]

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IS fighter distributes propaganda material to inhabitants of Kot district.

ISKP’s Battle for Minds: What are its main messages and who do they attract?

Borhan Osman •

The Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) uses propaganda to carve out new space in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s already crowded jihadi landscape. It uses popular media and promotes a distinct narrative of Salafi-jihadism tailored to local preferences and focused on specific themes. In the first part of this dispatch, AAN’s Borhan Osman analyses the propaganda messages […]

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Carnage in Ghor: Was Islamic State the perpetrator or was it falsely accused? 

Borhan Osman •

The Islamic State, holed up in a few districts in eastern Afghanistan, has suddenly popped up in a faraway western province, Ghor – at least according to provincial officials. They blamed IS for the massacre in October 2016 of more than 30 civilians. Digging deeper into the incident, AAN’s Borhan Osman found that the IS […]

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The NUG, brought to light by 'midwife' John Kerry in 2014, will be part of Obama's Afghan legacy for President Donald Trump. Photo c/o US Embassy Kabul

“People That Hate Us”: What can Afghans expect from President Trump?

Kate Clark • Thomas Ruttig •

If Hillary Clinton had won Tuesday’s race for the White House, the world would now have a good sense of who her top officials would be and what her foreign policy would look like. With a Secretary of State-turned-president, Afghanistan could have expected business to carry on pretty much as normal. With Donald Trump coming […]

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Kabul’s Kart-e Sakhi shrine where two attackers wearing police uniforms and equipped with grenades and machine guns opened fire on Ashura mourners on 11 October 2016. Photo: Tolo

With an Active Cell in Kabul, ISKP Tries to Bring Sectarianism to the Afghan War

Borhan Osman •

With its publically claimed attack on Afghan Shia mourners in Kabul on the eve of Ashura, the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) was clearly attempting to add a toxic sectarianism to the Afghan conflict. The attack, which killed 19 people, followed two other ISKP attacks, on a political demonstration by (largely Shia) Hazaras in July […]

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Screenshot from a video of a ISKP training in Nangarhar published in 2015

Descent into chaos: Why did Nangarhar turn into an IS hub?

Borhan Osman •

Armed groups pledging allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) have tried to establish a foothold in five of Afghanistan’s provinces, but only in Nangarhar have they succeeded. There, IS Khorasan Province (ISKP), the Afghanistan-Pakistan franchise of the Islamic State, landed on fertile ground with a fragmented insurgency, bickering provincial elites, a tradition of Salafi networks […]

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The Islamic State in ‘Khorasan’: How it began and where it stands now in Nangarhar

Borhan Osman •

The Islamic State’s local franchise in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP), has claimed responsibility for the suicide attack on the TUTAP protests in Kabul on 23 July 2016. The attack killed more than 80 people and injured over 230 others in Deh Mazang Square in western Kabul. The target of […]

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Afghan Islamic State supporters posted this photo: a small group of Daesh-affiliated fighters raising the IS flag inside a mosque in Afghanistan's northeast, they said. Photo: unknown IS supporter on social media.

The 2016 Insurgency in the North: Raising the Daesh flag (although not for long)

Obaid Ali •

The flag of the Islamic State (IS, or Daesh) has been flown twice in the last year in Takhar and Baghlan provinces by a group of ethnic Uzbek Afghans who had set up their own insurgent group, Jundullah, in 2009. It had enjoyed an uneasy alliance with the Taleban, but tried to use the turmoil […]

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Road to Achin, one of the districts with a Daesh presence. Photo: AAN (2015).

External AAN Publication: Daesh and Taleban in Afghanistan

Thomas Ruttig •

Oxford Analytica Daily Brief, 17 November 2015 Thomas Ruttig, “Afghan Taliban Contain Islamic States’ Regional Reach” Reported clashes between Islamic State group’s (ISG) fighters and Afghan security forces, and the appearance of ISG-style black flags, have raised concerns about the ISG threat in Afghanistan. However, many of the alleged sightings of ISG fighters are vague […]

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The large Zabul Seven protests in Kabul, 11 November 2015. Photo: Pajhwok.

The ‘Zabul Seven’ Protests: Who speaks for the victims?

Martine van Bijlert •

On 11 November 2015, Kabul witnessed probably one of the largest demonstrations in recent history. The trigger was the slaughter of seven Hazara travellers who had been taken hostage in Zabul province about a month ago. The demonstration, which continued well into the night, became an amalgam of emotions and agendas: grief and horror over […]

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First wave of IS attacks? Claim and denial over the Jalalabad bombs

Borhan Osman • Kate Clark •

The suicide attack on the Kabul Bank in Jalalabad on 18 April 2015, which killed more than 30 people and injured at least 100 others, was condemned by the Taleban and claimed by the Islamic State (IS), or at least by a Facebook site purporting to represent IS, also known as Daesh. President Ashraf Ghani also […]

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