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Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2021

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

Stevie Rosignol-Cortez, Gigafact

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.”

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