According to local people who met him, he had both plenty of money and authority within the ISKP hierarchy. Haji Daud had moved to Kunar’s Dewagal valley in mid-2019. A small TTP faction in Kunar had remained neutral during the entire ISKP-Afghan Taleban conflict.Īmong the better-known commanders from Pakistan was Haji Daud from South Waziristan, a cousin of the late TTP leader Hakimullah Mehsud who was killed in an airstrike in North Waziristan in November 2013. Most of them came from the networks of Tehrik-e Taleban-e Pakistan (TTP), the umbrella organisation of the Pakistani Taleban, already based in Kunar or Nangrahar, others from across the border in Pakistan. At the end of the offensive, most surrendered to the Afghan government forces in the province.Īmong the foreign ISKP fighters defeated in early 2020, the second largest groups were Pakistanis, most of them from the Orakzai tribe on the Pakistani side of the Durand Line, numbering, according to local sources, not more than 500 fighters. They included local Salafis, Afghan Taleban who had switched sides and new recruits. According to local sources, the number of Afghan ISKP commanders and fighters were around 1000 in total. The ISKP commanders and fighters in Kunar were mainly Afghan citizens.

There were also reports in ISKP-affiliated media about a targeted killing of a Taleban member in Dara-ye Pech district and an armed clash with Taleban in the Mazar valley (Nurgal district) but only the former incident had been independently confirmed. The February offensive was also preceded by various unsuccessful Taleban attempts to oust ISKP from Kunar.Ĭurrently, there is almost no ISKP visibility in Kunar province, apart from what Kabul-based security analysts describe as “rudimentary activity” of “loose networks of smaller IS-KP cells or supporters.” They are apparently located mainly in villages in the Dewagal valley (the Chelas area of upper Chawkai valley in the district of the same name), the Badel valley (Narang district) and the Quro valley (Watapur) but “not under any identifiable leadership or hierarchical structure.” There was a reported but unconfirmed targeted killing attributed to ISKP and at least one anti-ISKP search operation by Afghan government forces in Sarkani district in January 2021. This offensive followed an earlier one in neighbouring Nangrahar province in autumn of 2019 which also ended with the almost total defeat or displacement of the local ISKP, with a number of its fighters relocating to Kunar, where fallback positions had already been created ( read AAN analysis here). The Taleban retook almost all areas previously ruled by ISKP, in Chawkai, Narang, Nurgal, Chapa Dara and Dara-ye Pech districts. Most ISKP leaders – the local ones and those who had fled from Nangrahar to Kunar, including non-Afghans – were killed, some were arrested, fewer disappeared. Local public uprising forces took part in the fighting, and the US military contributed with air strikes. The Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) lost all of its military positions in Kunar as a result of an offensive that continued for more than a month in February and March 2020. The offensive was mainly carried out by the Taleban, but the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) supported them logistically and also provided safe passage for Taleban fighters to get to frontlines. Summary of the current situation in Kunar Read part 1 on the ISKP in eastern Afghanistan, about the situation after its defeat in Nangrahar, here. Photo: Sgt Trey Harvey (US Armed Forces), Creative Commons. Pech valley (Watapur district) in January 2012. This includes a highly unusual anti-ISKP deal between the provincial government and the Taleban and the alienation of the local population and even Salafi communities originally close to ISKP because of the group’s extremely brutal behaviour, which turned the Salafis back to the side of the Taleban. It looks at the emergence and evolution of ISKP in this eastern province, as well as developments and factors leading to its defeat.

This report is based on interviews with locals close to ISKP or the Taleban, tribal elders, journalists, civil society activists and government officials made during various trips to the province over the past two years by one of the authors, AAN’s Obaid Ali and guest author Khalid Gharanai. No open ISKP presence is left in Kunar now, or elsewhere in the country, though a small underground presence remains. This followed a first severe defeat in their major stronghold in the country, in Nangrahar province in late 2019. One year ago, the Afghan affiliate of the Islamic State – called Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) – lost its last territorial base in Afghanistan in Kunar province.

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