New documentary reveals IS Khorasan links with Pakistan

Pakistan's ISI not only provides cadres of its proxies like Haqqani Network and Lashkar-e-Taiba to the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) in Afghanistan, but also gives the pan-Islamist terror outfit around $200 million aid every year.

This revelation along with many others about the collusion of several Pakistan-backed terror groups with each other was made in a documentary 'Daesh in Afghanistan' released by Tolo News on Wednesday. The documentary has several testimonies from ordinary Afghan civil, Daesh Khorasan prisoners, former Daesh members who joined Afghan Taliban, scholars and security experts on Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The ISKP, as per Afghanistan's National Security Adviser, Hamdullah Mohib, is a broad umbrella under which many elements from the Haqqani network, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Kashmir-specific terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba have come together to strengthen the Afghan Taliban against the elected government in Afghanistan.

Former Pakistan ambassador to the US and author, Hussain Haqqani, in his comments said that ISKP was born out of very angry elements of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) which had very close links with the Sirajuddin Haqqani network. None of the ISKP members went to Syria, so it is just renaming and rebranding of the TTP, he said.

The outfit so far has mostly attacked Shias in Quetta where the Afghan Taliban operates from, the former ambassador said, adding the "ISKP is an outcome of the ideological extremism of Pakistani jihadi movements."

Afghan civil of Nangarhar province, interviewed in the documentary, said that initially, they thought ISKP members were "just migrants from Pakistan." But it was only after a turf war between Taliban and ISKP broke out in Nangarhar province, in which ISKP was able to seize territory, it became apparent who they were.

Last year in November, the Afghan and NATO coalition forces defeated the ISKP, forcing hundreds to surrender along with their families, with most of them being Pakistani nationals who had infiltrated, four years ago, into Nangarhar province through the Durand Line the border which Afghanistan has disputed since it was drawn by the British in 1893. Nangarhar province was the centre of the ISKP activities in Afghanistan.

Rahmatullah Nabil, former National Directorate of Security (NDS) chief, told TOLO news that the ISI asked Hafiz Saeed to send his Lashkar-e-Taiba cadres to Daesh (ISKP) to escape attacks on him. An expert on ISIS, Hussain Ehsani, revealed that Daesh Khorasan has several sources of income, including the $200 million it receives every year from the ISI.

Incidentally, recently a UN Security Council monitoring report said that Taliban and Al Qaida continue to cooperate with each other in Afghanistan and Kashmir-specific Pakistani terror groups, JeM and LeT are sending their trainers to Afghanistan to carry out target assassinations.

( With inputs from IANS )