Bombing in Kabul Stokes Fear of Jihadi Revival

The explosions outside Kabul’s international airport underscored a familiar worry in Afghanistan: the country remains home to thousands of fighters dedicated to jihad, or Muslim holy war. The South Asian country’s rugged landscape and its 2,600-kilometer (1,600-mile) border with Pakistan makes it an ideal hiding place for militants from al-Qaeda, Islamic State and other groups. The fear is that the victory of the Taliban has only increased the dangers. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the two blasts that killed 12 U.S. service members and at least 75 Afghans as the U.S. directed a military-led evacuation.

Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, which emerged from an al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq into an even more radical group, announced the formation of an Afghan franchise in January 2015. The affiliate, known as ISIS Khorasan, for an historical region stretching across parts of Asia and the Middle East, was formed largely by defectors from the Taliban and Tehrik-e Taliban, a group dedicated to the overthrow of Pakistan’s government. The affiliate, also called ISIS-K, was nearly wiped out from its main base in eastern Afghanistan in late 2019 by U.S. and Afghan military offensives and, separately, the Taliban. But around 2,000 fighters remain, according to a report by a United Nations Security Council committee, which attributed 77 attacks in the country to the group in the first four months of 2021.