The ISIS affiliate that US officials say was behind the deadly attack in Moscow is one of the last major competitors facing the Taliban government in Afghanistan and has carried out repeated attacks there, including on the Russian embassy, in recent years.
That branch of ISIS — known as the Islamic State of Khorasan or ISIS-K — has cast itself as the primary rival of the Taliban, who it says have not implemented true Sharia law since seizing power in 2021. It has sought to undermine the Taliban’s relations with regional allies and portray the government as incapable of providing security for the country, experts say.
In 2022, ISIS-K carried out attacks on the Russian and Pakistani embassies in Kabul and a hotel that hosted many Chinese nationals. More recently, he has also threatened attacks on the embassies of China, India and Iran in Afghanistan and unleashed a flood of anti-Russian propaganda.
It has also struck outside Afghanistan. In January, ISIS-K carried out two bombings in Iran that killed dozens and wounded hundreds of others at a memorial service for Iran’s former top general Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike four years earlier.
In recent months, the Taliban’s relationship with Russia, as well as with China and Iran, has warmed. While neither country has officially recognized the Taliban government, earlier this month Russia welcomed a Taliban military attaché to Moscow, while China officially welcomed a Taliban ambassador to the country. Both moves were seen as confidence-building measures with Taliban authorities.
ISIS-K has denounced the Kremlin for its interventions in Syria and condemned the Taliban for engaging with Russian authorities decades after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.
Its propaganda has described the Taliban as “betraying Afghanistan’s history and betraying their religion by making friends with their former enemies.” said Ricardo Valle, director of research at Khorasan Diary, an Islamabad-based research platform.
In the more than two years since they took over Afghanistan, Taliban security forces have waged a relentless campaign to try to eliminate ISIS-K and have successfully prevented the group from seizing territory inside Afghanistan. Last year, Taliban security forces killed at least eight ISIS-K leaders, according to US officials, and pushed many other fighters into neighboring Pakistan.
However, ISIS-K has proven resilient and has remained active throughout Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. Inside Afghanistan, it has targeted Taliban security forces in strike attacks and – as it came under increasing pressure from Taliban counter-terrorism operations – staged attacks across the country. Just a day before the Moscow concert hall attack, the group carried out a suicide bombing in Kandahar – the birthplace of the Taliban movement – sending a strong message that even the Taliban soldiers in the heart of the compound were not safe.
After the attack in Moscow, Abdul Qahar Balkhi, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s foreign ministry, said in a statement on social media that the country “condemns in the strongest terms the recent terrorist attack in Moscow” and “considers it a flagrant violation of every human. standards.”
“Regional countries must take a coordinated, clear and decisive stance against such incidents aimed at regional destabilization,” he added.
