Pictures are worth the article itself. ISIS pictures are disturbing (no graphic violence, just group pictures), more at link. Also, posted, one of Secretary Mattis meeting with Afghanistan dignitaries below.
Turning east: the rise of Islamic State’s Khorasan Province
Will the new dawn for ISIS in Afghanistan be quashed by unlikely allies?
Pawel Wojcik July 31, 2018
Since the beginning of 2018, Afghanistan has been shaken by multiple political crises, from provincial officials refusing to step down, Taliban attempts to endanger major provincial cities and expand from rural areas in the never ending war, and a crisis of legitimacy coming from former warlords like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Vice President General Abdul Rashid Dostum, who has now returned to Afghanistan after spending 14 months in self-imposed exile in Turkey. However, it is still the most dangerous terrorist group in the region that frequently occupies headlines and demands the attention of major political players in the region – the Islamic State Khorasan Province.
Islamic State first appeared in Afghanistan in 2014, when the first militant network pledged bayat, or allegiance to the group originally from Iraq. The appearance of these groups was a direct consequence of the proclamation of the so-called Caliphate on June 29, 2014, first by its spokesperson Mohammad al-Adnani in his “This Is The Promise of Allah†speech, released by al-Hayat Media Center, and confirmed a few days later on July 5, with ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi giving his first sermon as the supposed “Caliph†in the Iraqi city of Mosul.
Qari Hekmat, the top commander of Islamic State – Khorasan Province in the northern province of Jowzjan, Afghanistan before his death in a US airstrike in April 2018.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and U.S. Army General John Nicholson, commander of Resolute Support, greet Nicholson’s liasion at the Resolute Support Headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan, April 24, 2017. Image: DOD/U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Brigitte N. Brantley/flickr/CC BY 2.0
Read more at: https://thedefensepost.com/2018/07/31/afghanistan-isis-khorasan-province/
