Islamic State Khorasan

Context:

• People were killed in several explosions at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai Airport.
• The Afghan offshoot of the terror organization “Islamic State,” known as ISIS-Khorasan, IS-K or ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the attacks.
• The group takes its name from the Khorasan Province, an area that once included wide swaths of Afghanistan, Iran and central Asia in the Middle Ages.

Who are IS-K?

• IS-K originally emerged in Pakistan as an armed student group belonging to the umbrella organization, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.
• Fearing persecution at home, they fled across the border to Afghanistan and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and IS chief Baghdadi in 2014, who since has been killed. In the spring of 2015.
• IS officially absorbed the terrorists into their own network and announced its expansion into Central Asia as IS-K.

Difference between IS-K and the Taliban

• They have been locked in bloody battles with one another for some time.
• An ideological gulf separates the two militant groups.
• While the IS belongs to the Salafist movement of Islam; the Taliban adhere to the Deobandi school.
• Taliban seems content themselves with in Afghanistan, the Islamic State group in Afghanistan and Pakistan strives to establish a caliphate throughout South and Central Asia and has also embraced the Islamic State’s call for a worldwide jihad against non-Muslims.
• Sharia law interpretation: For IS-K, the Taliban’s views are not strict enough. IS fighters have called the Taliban as bad Muslims because of their willingness to negotiate a peace deal with the United States. By doing so, they betrayed the goals of the jihad.

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/islamic-state-khorasan-kabul-blasts-7473305/