U.S. Counterterrorism And ISIS-K
The Islamic State Khorasan Province, hereafter referred to as ISIS-K, is an emerging threat to regional security and an ever-evolving threat to U.S. security. This post provides a brief background on the rise and reconstitution of ISIS-K. Second, the post examines the administration of President Donald Trump’s counterterrorism response to the terror group. Third, the post examines the administration of President Joe Biden’s counterterrorism actions against ISIS-K. Finally, the post concludes with an analysis of the American counterterrorism response to confront ISIS-K.
Background
The core membership of ISIS-K represents disaffected members of the Pakistani Taliban and are loyal to ISIS Central in the Middle East.[1] This however does not explain the evolution of ISIS-K. Extremist elements from several terror networks set the stage for the formation of ISIS-K in Afghanistan. Those elements include members from “Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the Haqqani Network, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) had also defected to ISIS-K are critical” to the terror groups evolution.”[2]
Much of this activity led to the formation of ISIS-K in 2010 in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province. Approximately four years later, the leadership cadre of ISIS-K took shape. Once again extremists from several Pakistani terror organizations set this process in motion. Hafiz Saeed Khan, a Pakistani national, spearheaded the ISIS-K insurgency in Nangarhar province and in time was selected as the organizations’ initial emir.[3]
How did the nascent leadership cadre unfold? It is important to note Khan was “a veteran Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander,” [and he] brought along other prominent TTP members—including the group’s spokesman Sheikh Maqbool and many district chiefs—when he initially pledged allegiance to al-Baghdadi in October 2014.”[4]
After declaring loyalty to ISIS Central, ISIS-K formally announced not only opposition to the Taliban but considered the extremist entity an enemy. In the midst of its ideological struggle with the Taliban, ISIS-K incessantly announced that it would target not only Taliban forces, but U.S. and Afghan Security Forces. Additionally, ISIS-K declared its objective to “establish a ‘pure’ Islamic system in Afghanistan.”[5]
The Economic and Peace Global Terrorism Index in 2018 viewed ISIS-K as one of the top four deadliest terrorist organizations. The territorial expansion, brutality against the Afghan civilian population, and the increasing attacks on U.S. and Afghan government security forces, set the stage for the terrorist organizations decline. During the zenith of its power, ISIS-K membership in 2016 exceeded over 4,000.
During the consequential period covering late 2016 through the early period of 2017, ISIS-K increased their targeting of U.S. and Taliban forces. In addition, ISIS-K conducted a high-number of attacks against the Afghan population. These brutal attacks, which maimed a high number of innocent civilians, were designed to instill fear and serve as a warning to those to that would challenge their authority of territory under its control.
There is another significant issue regarding the evolution of ISIS-K. Not only does ISIS-K not recognize Afghanistan as a nation-state, but the terror entity also viewed the country as borderless, language consistent with ISIS Central leadership which used similar verbiage during the formation of Caliphate in Middle East.
Additionally, ISIS-K’s leadership incessantly spoke about the ideological clash with the Taliban, and that the terrorist organization engaged in skirmishes with Taliban fighters across Afghanistan.
In an illustration of the armed struggle between ISIS-K and the Taliban, “since January 2017, the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) has recorded 207 clashes between ISIS-K and the Afghan Taliban. These clashes occurred in 14 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, though the majority took place in Nangarhar, Jowzjan, and Kunar provinces.”[6]
Ironically, during the blitzkrieg across the country the Taliban played a pivotal role in the reconstitution of ISIS-K. One of the central decisions, one which it most certainly regrets, is the decision to free thousands of ISIS-K members imprisoned in the Bagram prison and from other prisons elsewhere in the country.[7] Intelligence assessments by the U.S. government indicate that between 5,000 and 7,000 ISIS-K and a high number of Al Qaeda operatives were released by the Taliban.
There are other indicators that demonstrate how the Taliban aided in the reconstitution of ISIS-K. For example, many Taliban fighters across the country have shifted their loyalty and have joined the ranks of ISIS-K. And in a strange twist, there is ‘a report’ that “one top Taliban official currently in a security role is a serving in a leadership role within ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K), a notorious terror operative whose identity has remained shrouded in mystery for years, is believed to be among the infiltrators.”[8]
ISIS-K and the Taliban are currently engaged in what can be described as a “shadow Civil War.” That is, the conflict among the combatants is increasing but has not yet erupted into a full-scale civil war.
Trump and the U.S. Response to ISIS-K
It did not take long before ISIS-K captured the attention of U.S. counterterrorism officials within the administration of Donald Trump and coalition allies. In response to threats to U.S. Special Forces and to Afghan security forces in Khorasan and elsewhere in the country, President Trump accepted Pentagon recommendations which initially called for increased Drone strikes and Special Operation raids against ISIS-K.
In recognition of the impact of the targeted strikes that crippled its leadership, ISIS-K made a strategic decision to hide in a network of cave complexes in the mountainous Nangarhar region. In response to that decision President Trump ordered the launch of the GBU-43/B or Massive Ordinance Air Blast (MOAB) that was dropped on a cave enclave which according to Afghan officials killed 94 ISIS-K members.[9]
On the significance of the strike, then White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer stated, the MOAB “targeted a system of tunnels and caves that ISIS fighters used to move around freely, making it easier for them to target U.S. military advisers and Afghan forces in the area.”[10] The strike most certainly ended the threat to U.S. and coalition forces.
ISIS-K suffered “major territorial, leadership and rank-and-file losses to the U.S.-led coalition and its Afghan partners—which culminated in the surrender of over 1,400 of its fighters and their families to the Afghan government in late 2019 and early 2020—the organization was declared, by some, to be defeated.”[11]
A question begs, how does one characterize the Trump administration’s counterterrorism approach to the threat posed by ISIS-K? The administration’s counterterrorism approach to confronting the ISIS-K threat in Afghanistan “consisted of coordinated U.S. air strikes working in synchronicity with U.S. Special Operations Forces-assisted Afghan military counteroffensives on the ground.”[12] A critical aspect of this approach is “the ability to hold territory recaptured from ISIS-K by Afghan forces and denying them space to stage a return.”[13]
Biden and the U.S. Response to ISIS-K
Prior to the ISIS-K suicide bombing attack that resulted in the death of 13 U.S. Military personnel which wounded 18 others and killed over 100 Afghan civilians at Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 26, 2021, one would be hard pressed to identify President Biden’s counterterrorism response to the ISIS-K threat. In fact, prior to the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces, the administration repeatedly spoke of the over-the-horizon counterterrorism strategy that Biden and Pentagon officials assert would be used against the Taliban, Al Qaeda, ISIS-K, the Tehrik-e-Taliban in Pakistan (also known as the Pakistani Taliban), what remains “one of the largest armed groups in Afghanistan after the Afghan Taliban.”[14]
Other than that, the evidence indicates that President Biden ordered Central Command not to intervene on advancing Taliban forces that were sweeping the country. The stated reason for decision is the Biden administration believed Afghan forces had the capability to disrupt and eventually repel Taliban advances occurring across the country.
Near the conclusion of the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August of 2021, the Biden administration launched a calculated and controversial policy to cooperate with the Taliban to confront ISIS-K. The Biden White House asserts the pragmatic decision is supported by the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In addition, the administration announced it is cooperating with members of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS-K, the Afghan regional off-shoot.[15]
In a nationally televised address President Biden stated, “We struck ISIS-K remotely, days after they murdered 13 of our servicemembers and dozens of innocent Afghans.”[16] And in a demonstration of the administration’s resolve, the president warned ISIS-K: “We are not done with you yet.”[17]
Biden subsequently issued this statement: “As Commander-in-Chief, I firmly believe the best path to guard our safety and our security lies in a tough, unforgiving, targeted, precise strategy that goes after terror…. That’s what’s in our national interest.”[18] To date, the administration has yet to announce a formal strategy to confront the threat posed by ISIS-K.
The administration initiated additional actions against ISIS-K. For example, many experts believe the Biden administration is attempting to rebrand the Drone War[19] which was previously started under President Barack Obama. The problematic drone strike that targeted a ISIS-K planner was supposed to represent the opening salvo of Biden’s new war.
Critics however charge that “over-the-horizon” strikes will not by itself end the ISIS-K threat. The administrations’ so-called “righteous strike” failed and quickly undermined any concerted military planning against ISIS-K.
There is the more pointed criticism against what some view as the Biden administration’s over-the-horizon delusions. Marc Garlasco, who previously worked at the Pentagon, made this statement: “This idea that over-the-horizon strikes are going to solve all the problems is absolute horseshit.”[20]
In a second example, in November 2021 the State Department designated three members of ISIS-K as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT) under Executive Order (E.O.) 13224.”[21] The members designated under the executive order include recently appointed emir Sanaullah Ghafari, senior ISIS-K member Maulawi Rajab, and the organizations spokesman Sultan Aziz Azam.[22]
Third, not long thereafter the Treasury Department took actions to curb entities engaged in terrorist financing of ISIS-K. The Department of the Treasury’s “Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated Ismatullah Khalozai, an individual who has acted as a financial facilitator for the Islamic State’s Khorasan Province.”[23] Critics quickly asserted these actions will have no short-term impact on lowering the ISIS-K threat.
With the increasing domestic and international uproar over the disastrous Afghan withdrawal, fallout from the failed drone strike, and the inability to evacuate all U.S. citizens and Afghan citizens that assisted the American war effort in Afghanistan, the Biden White House resisted Pentagon and CIA efforts to clearly define a strategy to defeat the nascent ISIS-K threat which is reconstituting and expanding in Afghanistan at a pace inconsistent with administration predictions and assessments.[24]
Analysis
There is a rudimentary query that defines the U.S. dilemma in responding to the ISIS-K threat: Where’s Biden’s Plan to Stop Terrorism? This question leads to another more pointed question. What is the president’s specific plan to deal with ISIS-K?
It is important to discuss the elephant in the room. With a still undetermined number of Americans still in Afghanistan, the Biden administration has been unwilling to launch any sustained attack-plan against ISIS-K. This begs an obvious question: why not do everything possible to exfiltrate all U.S. citizens and our Afghan allies from the country post haste?
Months after the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan, is it not odd the administration has not made any relevant statement about their plan to deal with ISIS-K? This query is significant in light of the reality that U.S. counterterrorism officials inside and outside the Biden administration have repeatedly sounded the alarm bell on the threat posed by the terror organization.
For example, during his October 26, 2021 testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on the Security Situation in Afghanistan, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin H. Kahl noted that both Al Qaeda and ISIS-K will have the capacity to strike the U.S. in “6 to 12 months.”[25]
There is another alarming reality. The U.S. intelligence community argues while the Taliban may control the country, they lack the capacity to prevent their enemy, ISIS-K, from launching an attack from territory which they control to target the American homeland.[26]
The Pentagon remains beholden to tactics that have already been implemented but have not slowed the ISIS-K threat. On this point Kahl reiterates points made by other Pentagon officials: “We are deploying [Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance] ISR over Afghanistan every single day. We also have national technical means.… We are sharing intelligence with regional partners and with our other partners, the U. K., and others, who are very focused on this problem set. So we will get after this challenge and we will try to grow our capability….”[27]
Within the Biden White House, officials continue to enlist tough rhetoric designed to demonstrate it has not lost focus on the ISIS-K threat. Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, asserted Biden “will ensure that we get the people responsible for this, that we continue to put pressure on the group responsible for this and that we continue to take targets off the battlefield.”[28]
This statement was made in late August of 2021. The reality is the administration has not launched any additional strikes against ISIS-K or identified a clear approach designed to confront the threat moving forward.
Other lesser-known realities identify dilemmas with the Biden administrations counterterrorism response against ISIS-K and other terrorist threats within the border of Afghanistan moving forward. In the short term, there are a host of realities that undermine the administrations’ over-the-horizon counterterrorism response that would be used against terrorist threats within Afghanistan.
In the absence of any U.S. military presence and direct control of territory in the country American intelligence capabilities have been crippled in Afghanistan. The absence of critical intelligence is illustrated in the problematic drone strike that killed innocent civilians rather than a member of ISIS-K. The failed drone strike prompted an apology by the administration.
The other realities will affect future Air and Special Operation (ground) missions within Afghanistan that could be used to target ISIS-K, the Taliban, and other terrorist groups in the country.
For starters, administration efforts to secure “proximate military bases” for counterterrorism assets have currently failed in “… obtaining bases in Central Asia.”[29] Second, the current government in Pakistan led by Prime Minister Imran Khan has refused basing rights to conduct operations within Afghanistan.[30]
Taken collectively, as articulated by Asfandyar Mir, a scholar affiliated with the Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, who correctly argued, American “counterterrorism pressure against terrorism threats in eastern, northern, and southern Afghanistan is at its lowest point in the last 20 years.”[31]
The dismantling of U.S. counterterrorism tools in and around Afghanistan which provided for a constant and well refined infrastructure dissipated with President Biden’s decision to ignore advice from the Pentagon and CIA to retain a token presence in the country which has set back America’s response capabilities for the foreseeable future.
[1] Azi Paybarah, “What Is the Islamic State Khorasan, a.k.a. ISIS-K?” New York Times, August 27, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/27/world/asia/who-isis-k-afghanistan.html.
[2] “Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K),” Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), 2018. https://www.csis.org/programs/transnational-threats-project/past-projects/terrorism-backgrounders/islamic-state-khorasan.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Asfandyar Mir, “The ISIS-K Resurgence,” The Wilson Center, October 8, 2021. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article /isis-k-resurgence.
[6] “Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K).”
[7] Eric Garcia, “Pentagon Admits ‘Thousands’ of ISIS-K Militants Released from U.S. Prisons by Taliban,” Independent.co.uk.com, August 27, 2021. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/ world/americas/us-politics/isis-k-us-prisons-taliban-b1910021.html.
[8] Ami Yousafzai and Tucker Reals, “ISIS-K is Trying to Undermine Afghanistan’s Taliban Regime, from Inside and Out. That’s America’s Problem, Too,” CBSNews.com, October 8, 2021. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/isis-k-taliban-afghanistan-regime/.
[9] Helene Cooper and Mujib Mashal, “U.S. Drops ‘Mother of All Bombs’ on ISIS Caves in Afghanistan,” New York Times, April 13, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/world /asia/moab-mother-of-all-bombs-afghanistan.html.
[10] Robin Wright, “Trump Drops the Mother of All Bombs on Afghanistan, The New Yorker, April 14, 2017. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-drops-the-mother-of-all-bombs-on-afghanistan.
[11] Amira Jadoon and Andrew Jones, “Who Is ISIS-K?” Defense One, August 26, 2021. https://www.defenseone. com/ideas/2021/08/isis-k-kabul-explosion-afghanistan-terrorism/184903/.
[12] Saurav Sarkar, “ISKP and Afghanistan’s Future Security,” Stimson.org, August 6, 2021. https://www.stimson.org/2021/https-www-stimson-org-2021-iskp-and-afghanistans-future-security/.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Asfandyar Mir, “Twenty Years After 9/11: The Terror Threat from Afghanistan Post the Taliban Takeover,” Combatting Terrorism Center, September 2021, Volume 14, Issue 7. https://ctc.usma.edu/twenty-years-after-9-11-the-terror-threat-from-afghanistan-post-the-taliban-takeover/.
[15] Laurie Mylroie, “U.S. Prepared to Work with Taliban Against ISIS-K in Afghanistan,” Kurdistan 24, November 24, 2021. https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/story/26361-US-prepared-to-work-with-Taliban-against-ISIS-K-in-Afghanistan.
[16] Remarks by President Biden on the End of the War in Afghanistan. The White House, August 31, 2021. www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/08/31/remarks-by-presi dent-biden-on-the-end-of-the-war-in-afghanistan/.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[20] Ibid.
[19] Nick Turse, “How Biden is Trying to Rebrand the Drone War,” Responsible Statecraft, October 21, 2021. https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/10/25/how-biden-is-trying-to-rebrand-the-drone-war/.
[21] Taking Action Against ISIS-K, Secretary of Antony S. Blinken, Department of State Press Statement. November 22, 2021. https://www.state.gov/taking-action-against-isis-k/.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Treasury Designates Key Financial Facilitator for the Islamic State’s Afghanistan Branch. U.S. Department of the Treasury, Press Release. November 22, 2021. https://home.treasury.gov /news/press-releases/jy0502.
[24] Peter Mills, “Afghanistan Warning Update: IS-KP in Afghanistan is Expanding Faster Than Anticipated,” Institute for the Study of War (ISW), October 27, 2021. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/afghanistan-warning-update-kp-afghanistan-expanding-faster-anticipated.
[25] Greg Hadley, “ISIS-K Could Have Ability to Strike Outside Afghanistan in Six Months, DOD Official Says,” AirForceMag.com, October 26, 2021. https://www.airforcemag.com/isis-k-ability-strike-outside-afghanistan-six-months-dod/.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Ibid.
[28] Tony Czuczka, “U.S. Will Keep Striking Afghan ISIS Targets, Biden Aide Says,” Bloomberg.com, August 29, 2021. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-29/killed-isis-fighters-were-planning-more-attacks-biden-aide-says.
[29] Mir, “Twenty Years After 9/11: The Terror Threat from Afghanistan Post the Taliban Takeover.”
[30] Ibid.
[31] Ibid.
