ISKP Recruitment Drive for Foreign Fighters endangers regional stability
As the outlet Eurasianet reported this March, the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) operating out of its Afghan base has recently started expanding its recruitment outreach efforts to target neighboring Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. This step is likely to generate attention from neighboring governments that worry about the potential of organized violence spreading into their interiors.
According to Eurasianet’s report, ISKP began widening its recruitment efforts in February. Various outlets associated with the terror organization disseminated a number of books, articles, and recorded speeches and songs in the national languages of their intended recipients. ISKP’s propaganda also championed a radical Islamist Uzbek songwriter as a locally respected figurehead to further appeal to the foreign audience.
ISKP’s outreach efforts occur mostly through encrypted media channels, notably Telegram, as intelligence agencies have successfully taken down IS-affiliated official websites and accounts repeatedly. Telegram groups and more informal channels have presented a harder target for counter-terrorist forces in the cyber realm. However, the quality and quantity of ISKP’s media output have by no means been impeded by this increasing shift to more indirect channels for dissemination. In fact, the production of multimedial propaganda has ramped up considerably ever since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan last year. Indirectly connected organizations furthermore spread propaganda in Urdu and Hindi beyond Central Asia.
Much more so than the Taliban, ISKP appeals to an international audience of Islamist radicals. Emerging as a franchise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) made up of dissatisfied Taliban fighters, the organization has a broader territorial claim than the Taliban. As its name implies, ISKP claims to be the local representation of the Islamic State in the Khorasan Province, a loosely defined territory encompassing large swaths of Central Asia. Therefore, ISKP is opposed to the Taliban due to their comparatively narrow aims of controlling only Afghanistan and its propaganda has accordingly accused the rival of petty nationalism. Such propaganda certainly appeals to regional sympathizers beyond Afghanistan.
As a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies noted, the combination of a more hands-off Western approach in the region and a weak Taliban counterterrorist initiative is bound to facilitate ISKP’s growth tremendously in the near future. With this growth, the potential for violence in Afghanistan and beyond also increases: ISKP is said to be responsible for 32 attacks between August and December of last year alone.
In light of these developments and ISKP’s supraregional claims, Central Asian governments have worried considerably about the spillover of insurgent violence to their territories. Although a most recent alleged attack on an Uzbek border outpost appears to not be attributable to the group, ISKP’s growing force – now numbering around 4000 fighters – certainly presents a real danger, especially as it begins to incorporate transnational recruits.