ISIS on the borders: Tajikistan prepares to expel members of organization’s rising branch

ISIS Khorasan seeks to expand its sphere of influence in Central Asia by increasing cross-border attacks, which has prompted the authorities of the Republic of Tajikistan to declare a state of high alert and call for fighting against the organization due to its position on the Tajik-Afghan border following its repeated and noticeable cross-border activity, especially after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in mid-August 2021.

Confronting ISIS

Tajik Interior Minister Ramazon Rahimzoda announced on Wednesday, February 15, that his country's army is ready to confront ISIS on the border with Afghanistan, stressing during an interview with BBC Persian that the most important security units are focused on securing the borders with Afghanistan and are ready to respond to potential ISIS threats, pointing out that the Afghan Taliban movement either cannot or does not want to fight terrorist groups.

After the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, ISIS increased its terrorist operations and was responsible for missile attacks from Afghanistan on Central Asian countries, trying to show its presence in the areas bordering those countries, but the Afghan movement insisted that it would deal firmly with ISIS and strike the organization’s elements everywhere in the country. Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi denied what he described as the “allegations” of the Collective Security Treaty Organization regarding the presence of 4,000 armed men from the Khorasan branch of ISIS in northeastern Afghanistan on the border of Tajikistan.

The Collective Security Treaty was signed in May 1992 in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, and in 2002 in Moscow, the treaty became the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and stipulates that in the event of a threat from Afghanistan against Tajikistan, CSTO forces will respond within 12 hours.

In the middle of February, Afghan Taliban officials announced the start of an operation targeting an ISIS hideout in the Karte Naw area of Kabul, according to Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, who confirmed the arrest of some foreign citizens in that operation.

Threatened borders

Major General Anatoly Sidorov, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, confirmed that the number of ISIS Khorasan branch fighters in Afghanistan has reached about 6,500 terrorists, noting that about 4,000 terrorists moved near the Afghan-Tajik borders, which constitutes a threat to a CSTO member state. He added that the presence of many extremist groups based in Afghanistan is the biggest threat to stability in Central Asian countries.

In a previous report published by the European Center for Arab and African Strategic Studies, a number of elements affiliated with ISIS in Tajikistan are working to recruit dozens of young people. The seriousness of the matter is that there are many who, due to their economic conditions, fall into the trap of these terrorists. The report noted that ISIS is trying to establish itself on the Tajik border, taking advantage of the geographical location and security gaps to establish training camps there to launch successive attacks against Germany and Russia.

Expansionist ambitions

Observers confirmed that ISIS Khorasan has recently sought to intensify the production, translation and dissemination of propaganda directed at the Uzbek, Tajik and Kyrgyz communities in the region. Hesham al-Naggar, a researcher of Islamist groups, confirmed that ISIS Khorasan has made it clear that it has expansionist ambitions in the Asian region, which it weaves along the lines of the old al-Qaeda map.

All of this means that ISIS Khorasan has become a serious terrorist force that not only challenges the Taliban, but also the regimes that were formed in the post-Soviet period, the researcher said in exclusive statements to the Reference.

Naggar noted that the terrorist organization is planning to repeat the experience of al-Qaeda, which built the foundation of its global organization by expanding first on the Asian map, whether in the countries of Central Asia or the countries of Southeast Asia, and from there it set up training camps, plans and training, and it prepared for its most dangerous terrorist operations, foremost of which were the September 11 attacks. Therefore, the strongest influence of ISIS Khorasan is currently concentrated in Asia, where it is trying to build an alternative caliphate to the one it lost in Iraq and the Middle East.

It is expected that ISIS Khorasan will benefit from external operations to undermine the legitimacy of the Taliban government, which confirms that it is not allowed to use Afghan lands to attack Afghanistan's neighbors, Naggar concluded.