World News

Islamic State-Khorasan: Russian attack expands group's threat

By Danielle Haynes   |   Updated March 25, 2024 at 11:44 AM
Fire rises above the burning Crocus City Hall concert venue in Krasnogorsk, near Moscow, on Friday. Photo by Vasily Prudnikov/EPA-EFE People lay flowers in front of the Russian Embassy in Moldova as a sign of condolences to the people of Russia after the terrorist attack on a concert venue near Moscow. Photo by Dumitru Doru/EPA-EFE Rockets can be scene inside a car as Afghans inspect the destroyed vehicle after the U.S. military said it was used to fire rockets toward the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 30, 2021. File Photo by Bashir Darwish/UPI Smoke billows near Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 29, 2021, after an explosion. Islamic State-Khorasan claimed responsibility for the blast, which killed 200, including 13 U.S. service members. File Photo by EPA-EFE

The Islamic State-Khorasan Province has claimed responsibility for the attack on a concert hall near Moscow on Friday that killed more than 130 people, as intelligence officials say the group seeks to expand its influence.

ISIS-K first gained widespread attention for orchestrating a suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, in the final days of the U.S. troop withdrawal in August 2021.

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Nearly 200 people were killed, including 13 U.S. troops assisting with evacuations.

In January, the group bombed a memorial service in Iran for Iranian Gen. Qassem Suleimani, killing scores of people.

In Friday's attack on Crocus City Hall, an entertainment complex in Krasnogorsk, near Moscow, gunmen stormed the building with automatic weapons and threw incendiary explosives that detonated and ignited a fire in the concert hall before a planned concert.

U.S. officials, who designated the group a terrorist organization in 2016, say ISIS-K aims to attack Europe and beyond.

Khorasan roots

Who is ISIS-K and how close is its affiliation with the Islamic State, which has been active in Iraq and Syria since 2014?

Much like its parent terror group, ISIS-K is known by many names. The U.S. government refers to it as ISIS-K, while other agencies or media outlets may call it IS-KP, ISIL-K or Daesh-Khorasan (based on a transliteration of the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State).

The group takes its name from the historical Khorasan region in Asia -- parts of Iran, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan.

According to an analysis of ISIS-K's history by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the group was first made up of militants who defected in 2014 from Tehrik-e-Taliban, al-Qaida and Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. ISIS sent its members to meet with these defected fighters to form the Khorasan branch by early 2015 under the leadership of Hafiz Saeed Khan.

Membership in ISIS-K also includes fighters from Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Myanmar.

Like the Islamic State, the Khorasan offshoot seeks to establish an Islamic caliphate and label those who reject Sharia law as apostates who can be executed as punishment.

ISIS-K was -- and still is -- a rival to the Taliban political movement and militant group, though there has been some overlap with the Taliban's Haqqani Network. Specifically, ISIS-K vowed to retaliate against the Taliban for engaging in peace negotiations with the United States in 2021and for not ruling strictly according to Sharia law.

ISIS-K has also fought Afghan security forces, as well as other international forces -- basically any entity that doesn't abide by its strict form of Islamic rule.

A July 2016 U.S. airstrike killed ISIS-K's first leader, Khan. The group's seventh leader, Shabab al-Muhajir, is currently in power. Al-Muhajir, an Iraqi, previously belonged to the Haqqani Network and al-Qaida, before joining ISIS-K.

The CSIS said al-Muhajir is believed to be the first commander of the group to hail from outside the historic Khorasan region.

The group is funded largely through local donations, extortion and by the parent ISIS group, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.

A CSIS analysis indicated that ISIS-K was at its strongest in 2018 and had declined into 2023.

By May 2021, the U.N. Security Council estimated ISIS-K had a membership of between 1,500 and 2,200 fighters based mostly in Kunar and Nangarhar provinces, Afghanistan.

Deadly attacks

Among its most notable attacks were a series of explosions at campaign rallies in Bannu and Mastung, Pakistan, in 2018 that killed about 150 people. The group also claimed responsibility for a series of bombs near a school in Kabul in May, which killed 90 people.

Still, its most deadly single attack remains the Aug. 26, 2021, suicide explosion at the Kabul International Airport amid the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan and the U.S.-led evacuation of the capital.

In its assessment, the CSIS said ISIS-K is a threat to Afghan civilians and the newly established Taliban government, and the group likely feels "emboldened" by its deadly attack on Aug. 26 and the "power vacuum" left by the withdrawal of U.S. troops and allies.

U.S. President Joe Biden promised to respond with force against the ISIS-K in the hours after the attack.

"To those who carried out this attack, as well as anyone who wishes America harm, know this: We will not forgive, we will not forget, we will hunt you down and make you pay," he said in a televised address to the nation.

Indeed, one day later, the U.S. military conducted a drone strike that killed at least one planner of the attack.