Who is ISIS-K, the group behind the Kabul terror attack?

The Islamic State splinter group, a vowed enemy of the Taliban who believes its adherence to sharia law is not extreme enough, bombed a Kabul maternity hospital last year.

Medical staff move a stretcher to bring injured people for treatment after two powerful explosions, which killed at least six, outside the airport in Kabul. Picture: AFP

The complex twin attacks targeting United States military forces outside of the Kabul airport late on Thursday night were the work of ISIS-K, a splinter group of the Islamic State.

The group claimed responsibility for the attacks, after British defence sources said the shocking Kabul bombings, one a suicide vest and the second believed to be a car bomb, were “highly likely” to be the work of ISIS-K; the same group blamed for a terrible bombing on a Kabul maternity hospital in May 2020, killing 24 babies and mothers.

ISIS-K, a vowed enemy of the Taliban – believing its adherence to sharia law is not extreme enough – has also claimed responsibility for other attacks in the Afghan capital including rocket attacks and bombings targeting the Kabul university, prisons and hospitals.

Western allies had warned that the airport was to be the target of an imminent attack this week – leading to the British, American and Australian governments telling people to avoid going to the airport because of an “ongoing and high threat of terrorist attack” on Wednesday.

The governments, which share such intelligence through the Five Eyes partnership, had issued the advice more than 12 hours before the twin blasts occurred.

Earlier in the week US president Joe Biden also referred to a possible attack by ISIS-K.

“Every day we are on the ground is another day that we known ISIS-K is seeking to target the airport and attack both US and allied forces and innocent civilians,” Mr Biden had said.

ISIS-K is a splinter group of Islamic State which has established itself in eastern Afghanistan province of Khorasan, close to the border with Pakistan as far back as nearly ten years ago.

Julian Richards a former intelligence analyst with the British intelligence arm, GCHQ, told Sky News that the “likeliest protagonist is ISIS-K”.

Also known as IS-KP, the splinter group is named after the Khorasan Province and since its formation between 2012 to 2015 near the Pakistan border, it has attracted disaffected jihadis from Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the Haqqani Network, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU).

Mr Richards said: “ISIS-K has carried out a number of really brutal attacks, not just on western forces but on the Shia minority in Afghanistan and they are trying to make their mark and muscle in on the militant jihadist picture here.”

He added: “Kabul offered them a tremendous opportunity to deliver a big attack. The militant picture in Afghanistan is extraordinarily complicated, there are a lot of different groups at play here. Some are mortal enemies … it is a chaotic and dangerous situation and it has become more chaotic and dangerous and offers an opportunity for them to make their mark.”

Mr Richards said that ISIS-K had suffered loss of membership in recent times and hadn’t managed to grow and assert itself as much as it wanted.