FACT BRIEF

Has ISIS-K, the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan-based affiliate, directly threatened the US?

Tuesday, August 31, 2021

By Stevie Rosignol-Cortez

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YES

The Islamic State Khorasan, the affiliate of the Islamic State group active in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, presents an “enduring threat” to the U.S. homeland as well as allied interests in the region, the Center for Strategic and International Studies said in 2018.

The group, sometimes referred to as ISIS-K or Daesh Khorasan, claimed responsibility for the Aug. 26, 2021, attack at Kabul’s airport, which killed at least 169 civilians and 13 U.S. service members. Earlier this year the group was involved in an attempted assassination of a U.S. diplomat in Kabul.

In 2018 CSIS noted the group’s sweeping vow to raise “the banner of al-Uqab above the White House." The banner is a solid black flag of symbolic importance in Islamic tradition.

CSIS noted that the group “has mocked and threatened the United States in its official media streams and called for lone-wolf attacks in the West.”

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

Center for Strategic and International Studies Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K) - 2018 analysis

White House Remarks by President Biden on the terror attack at Hamid Karzai International Airport

NPR The group ISIS-K claims responsibility for the deadly Kabul attack

CNN Afghanistan foils ISIS plan to assassinate the top US envoy to Kabul

Wikipedia Black Standard

International Institute for Strategic Studies The increasing presence of ISIS in South Asia

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