Published:  08:40 AM, 09 October 2025

A Perilous Convergence of Radical Outfits and Espionage Divisions in South Asia

A Perilous Convergence of Radical Outfits and Espionage Divisions in South Asia
 

The Islamic State–Khorasan Province (ISKP), an active affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), has over the passage of time, become one of the most lethal terrorist organizations especially in South and Central Asia since its establishment in January 2015. In the last decade, operating across both sides of the Durand Line in Afghanistan and Pakistan, ISKP has expanded its influence into the wider region, continuously posing a severe threat to regional stability. Initially, ISKP did not maintain a favourable relationship with Pakistan and was viewed with suspicion by the country’s security establishment. However, overtime, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) steadily forged deep ties with the group, manipulating it to serve its own nefarious strategic objectives. This convergence has not only shaped the trajectory of terrorism in South Asia but has also introduced renewal threats to India and other countries in the region.

Significantly, since the emergence of ISKP, when emissaries of the Islamic State reached out to defectors from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Afghan Taliban, and other militant groups active in the vicinity. The objective was to create a Khorasan branch of ISIS, dedicated to advancing the project of establishing a global Caliphate. The Khorasan region, historically encompassing parts of modern-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Central Asia, was chosen deliberately by ISIS leadership due to its historical significance in early Islamic conquests and its prevailing geopolitical importance.

In its early years, ISKP made rapid territorial forays, capturing areas such as Nangarhar in eastern Afghanistan. These victories gave it a reputation as a formidable force, but its advance was quickly checked by sustained attacks from the Afghan Taliban. Unlike al-Qaeda, which maintained a relatively cooperative relationship with the Taliban, ISKP has remained locked in an intense rivalry with them, rooted in competition for territory, resources, recruits, and most importantly, legitimacy as the leading jihadi movement in the region and particularly in Afghanistan.

Crucially, Pakistan’s ISI has long viewed militant groups as convenient instruments of foreign policy, deploying them both for strategic depth in Afghanistan and to wage asymmetric warfare against India. The Taliban’s return to power in August 2021 presented Pakistan with a paradox. While Islamabad had long supported the Taliban, the new Afghan rulers increasingly asserted their independence and vehemently resisted subservience to Pakistani interests. This created a dilemma for the ISI, which sought alternative levers to maintain influence in Afghanistan and to pressure the Taliban into compliance.

In this context, ISKP became a useful and convenient tool. For Pakistan, cultivating ISKP serves multiple purposes. First, it acts as a counterweight to the Taliban, deterring them from straying too far from Pakistan’s strategic orbit. Second, ISKP can be used against the TTP, which has trained its guns on the Pakistani State and carries out intermittently devastating attacks within Pakistan. Finally, ISKP offers Pakistan a proxy to strike at India and to signal its ability to destabilize the region through transnational terrorism. This tactical convergence between ISI and ISKP illustrates the adaptability of Pakistan’s proxy warfare model, even as it perpetuates instability across the region.  This is a very vital development calling for in-depth and detailed watch at regular intervals.

Also, there is mounting evidence of the deepening links between ISI and ISKP. Most of the early leaders of ISKP, including its first four Emirs, were Pakistani nationals, underlining the group’s dependence on Pakistani networks. Dr Naseem Baloch, Chairman of the Baloch National Movement, stated at the United Nations in March 2024 that Pakistani officials were actively training and supervising international terrorist organizations, including ISKP, in Balochistan province. Such statements lend credibility to long-standing suspicions of Pakistan’s covert sponsorship to several terror entities especially to the ISKP

Further evidence in this regard comes from Ehsanullah Ehsan, former spokesperson of the TTP, who revealed that ISI’s cooperation with ISKP is based on the “Dabori agreement,” named after Orakzai district in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, which is also the birthplace of ISKP’s first emir, Hafiz Saeed Khan Orakzai. The agreement, according to Ehsan, facilitated coordination between ISI and ISKP leadership and laid the foundation for their operational cooperation. Following the Taliban’s rise to power in 2021, ISKP lost considerable ground in Afghanistan and fled to Pakistan, where it found space, resources, protection and ready patronage. The fact that Pakistan has never launched any serious military campaign against ISKP, despite its growing presence, further confirms the existence of such a functional arrangement.

It is pertinent to underscore that perhaps the most alarming dimension of ISKP’s evolution is its increasing outreach to Indian interests. In March 2020, ISKP claimed responsibility for the attack on a Sikh Gurdwara in Kabul, one of the attackers being identified as a resident of Kerala. The incident highlighted how ISKP was attempting to recruit from India and involve Indian nationals in its operations. This was not an isolated development. In 2022, ISKP’s English-language propaganda magazine, Voice of Khorasan, claimed links with militants responsible for the Coimbatore and Mangalore blasts.

Although analysts often argue that ISKP’s hardline Salafist ideology has limited resonance in Afghanistan, where the majority of Muslims follow the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, this ideological barrier does not deter the group from targeting fringe elements and vulnerable youth. Through a sophisticated presence on internet  and multilingual propaganda, ISKP has sought to radicalize individuals beyond traditional geographical and sectarian boundaries. For India, which already faces multiple layers of terrorism threats, ISKP’s penetration represents an additional and growing challenge.

On its part, Pakistan has attempted to deflect accusations of supporting ISKP by pointing to attacks carried out by the group inside its territory. For instance, ISKP had struck in Bajaur district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in July 2023 and has also conducted attacks in Balochistan. However, these incidents are limited in scale and scope, and notably, ISKP has never mounted any major attack on Pakistan’s military or intelligence institutions. This selective pattern raises suspicions about the group’s operational activities within Pakistan.

The diabolical face of Pakistan’s strategy can be best understood through the statement of former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who warned in 2011 that “you can’t keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbours”.  By nurturing ISKP as a proxy, Pakistan has created a monster that could eventually turn on its own State, even if at present it largely serves Islamabad’s regional ambitions.

The threat posed by ISKP is not confined to South Asia. The group’s ability to strike beyond its immediate base was demonstrated in the March 2024 attack at a Concert Hall in Krasnogorsk, Russia, which killed scores of civilians. This incident illustrated both ISKP’s growing operational capabilities and its ambitions to position itself as a global terrorist organization capable of carrying out transnational attacks.

For the wider international community, the ISI–ISKP nexus complicates counter-terrorism efforts. Pakistan’s continued patronage of terrorist groups undermines global security initiatives and risks creating sanctuaries for extremists that could destabilize not only South Asia but also Central Asia, Russia, and potentially Europe. The longer the international community turns a blind eye to Pakistan’s complicity, the more entrenched and dangerous ISKP will become.

The ISKP–ISI relationship is a textbook example of Pakistan’s reliance on militant proxies to pursue its strategic interests, even at the cost of regional and global stability. By providing safe havens, funding, and training, ISI has bolstered ISKP and used it as a tool against the Taliban and the TTP in particular and India as well. This convergence has already resulted in devastating attacks and could pave the way for even more catastrophic consequences if left unchecked.

There is an urgent need for the international community to acknowledge Pakistan’s ISI role in strengthening ISKP and to hold Islamabad accountable. 

A coordinated effort is required to dismantle ISKP’s safe havens, disrupt its financial pipelines, and curb its online propaganda networks. Failure to act decisively will allow ISKP to expand further, and Pakistan’s dangerous gamble will continue to undermine the stability of South and Central Asia and threaten global security.

The proposed prescription appears imperative and doable, especially in light of Pakistan Chief of Army Staff (COAS), General Asim Munir’s increased military jingoism in the last six months using belligerent rhetoric and threatening tenor at Islamabad (April 16, 2025) which touched upon tenets of “two nation theory” and Kashmir being the “jugular vein”.  Also, in his second US visit speaking before a section of Pakistani diaspora in Tampa, Florida (August 10, 2025), he threatened to use nuclear arsenal to launch war from the Eastern theatre.  Again, this time, Munir’s tenor was more acrimonious, aggressive and clearly posturing with war-like hysterics.  His threat to plunge the region into nuclear war should his country face an existential threat saying “we are a nuclear nation, if we think we are going down, we will take half the world down with us”.

Against this backdrop, the growing ISKP-ISI nexus will compound terror threats calling for more vigil and extraordinary alertness in the region as the unfortunate Pahalgam terror attack of April 22 is still fresh in everyone’s mind.

 
Dr. Shantanu Mukharji is a
retired IPS officer and former 
National Security Advisor 
in Mauritius. 



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