Afghanistan: ISIS-K scouts suspected of earlier airport test attack

ISIS-K operatives are believed to have mingled with desperate Afghans to video the entrances and examine its defences ahead of today’s airport attacks.

The area around the Abbey Gate at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul where two explosions struck.

Scouts associated with ISIS-K militants suspected of the attacks on Kabul airport are believed to have mingled with desperate Afghans to video the entrances and examine its defences.

Security experts believe that an incident on Monday in which an Afghan soldier was shot dead by an unidentified attacker may have been a test of airport response protocols in planning for a bigger attack.

US officials believe strongly that the bombings were the work of Islamic State-Khorasan, a small but vicious group singled out by President Biden in his White House address on Tuesday as an “acute and growing” risk to the evacuation.

Named after a region comprising parts of Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Turkmenistan, ISIS-K is, as Biden said, a “sworn enemy of the Taliban”, which it views as having sold out to the Americans by making a deal with President Trump last year, and continuing talks with the US.

A recent UN security council report suggested that there were between 1,000 and 2,200 ISIS-K fighters, down from a peak of between 5,000 and 6,000 in 2016. Their ranks were swollen by prisoners who escaped from two jails near Kabul as Afghanistan fell under Taliban control this month.

ExTrac, which tracks terrorist groups, noted on Wednesday that Isis-K had gone quiet since the Taliban takeover, raising fears that it was focusing on a significant plot.

The group has increased its attacks since its “comeback” in June last year, but the 11 days before today’s attack were its longest period of inactivity since last October.

The British government advised against all travel to Kabul airport on Wednesday night in a co-ordinated move with the US and Australia after it received “specific intelligence” about the attack. A government source said that the intelligence, which came from the US, had included the identity of the attackers and a broad outline of their plans. Their precise location, however, was not known.

ISIS-K was founded in 2015 by Pakistani militants and disaffected Taliban members. It operates mainly in the north and east of Afghanistan, close to Kabul. It uses a distinctive black flag, in contrast to the white flag of the Taliban, and the two groups have fought each other for Afghan territory. It is understood that last week the Taliban killed an Isis-K commander who had been imprisoned in Kabul.

The group is thought to have attacked a maternity hospital in Kabul in May last year, killing 24 people including mothers and newborn babies.

It has claimed several other attacks in Kabul, including one on the city’s university last November. ISIS-K also claimed an attack on Jalalabad prison last August.

US President Joe Biden pauses as he delivers remarks on the terror attack at Hamid Karzai International Airport.

Biden said on Tuesday: “The longer we stay, starting with the growing risk of an attack by a terrorist group known as ISIS-K, an Isis affiliate in Afghanistan - which is the sworn enemy of the Taliban as well - every day we’re on the ground is another day we know that ISIS-K is seeking to target the airport and attack both US and allied forces and innocent civilians.”

Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, underlined the concern the following day, saying: “We’re operating in a hostile environment in a city and country now controlled by the Taliban, with the very real possibility of an ISIS-K attack. We’re taking every precaution but this is very high-risk.”

THE TIMES