ISIS Plotting Attacks from Afghanistan

By: Jennifer Cafarella and Caitlin Forrest with Charles Aubin

Key Takeaway:  Afghanistan remains a safe haven for terrorist plots against the U.S. homeland. The Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham’s (ISIS) affiliate in Afghanistan and an American ISIS member in Pakistan coordinated an attack attempt in the U.S. in early 2016. ISIS seized at least one district in northwestern Afghanistan in early November, and is assembling new foreign fighter units. ISIS will use this safe haven to conduct new attacks abroad.

ISIS is using safe haven in Afghanistan and Pakistan to plan attacks in the U.S. ISIS operatives in Pakistan, Canada, and the Philippines planned a major coordinated attack against New York City in early 2016, according to the U.S. Justice Department. The cell planned to attack civilians in Times Square using firearms and suicide vests made using the signature ISIS explosive TATP. A U.S. citizen and ISIS operative in Pakistan told an undercover FBI asset that he received authorization from ISIS’s “Wilayat Khorasan” in Afghanistan for the attack. American, Canadian, Pakistani, and Philippine authorities dismantled the cell after the ISIS operative in Canada attempted to cross into the U.S. The cell’s geographic disposition indicates ISIS shifted more of its external operations activity out of Syria and Iraq. ISIS previously exported an external operations cell to Libya in December 2015, which is supporting ISIS’s attack campaign in Europe.

ISIS elements in Afghanistan and Pakistan may have already coordinated additional attack plots in the U.S. Another would-be attacker in the U.S., Mahin Khan, contacted a member of the Pakistani Taliban in order to receive support for an attack on behalf of ISIS, according to the FBI. Federal authorities arrested Khan in July 2016. It is possible he actually contacted the ISIS faction that split from the Pakistani Taliban in October 2014. The Pakistani Taliban has previously attempted to conduct attacks in the U.S., including a foiled 2010 car bombing in New York City.

ISIS is organizing new foreign fighter units in northern Afghanistan. Local officials and residents in Jowzjan Province claimed in early November that ISIS foreign fighters from France, Sudan, Chechnya, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan are recruiting locals and training child suicide bombers. ISIS likely began to recruit Taliban members in Jowzjan in early 2015. ISIS’s growth in the province accelerated after November 2015 when the Taliban kicked out Qari Hekmat, who became a local ISIS commander. ISIS is also siphoning fighters from the pro-al Qaeda Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). An IMU faction pledged allegiance to ISIS in August 2015. The IMU founder’s son, Abdul Malik, moved to Jowzjan in February 2017 with “hundreds” of fighters and their families in order to seize control from the Taliban. The Institute for the Study of War warned the same month that ISIS was on track to create a logistical hub to receive and train foreign fighters as the group lost ground in Iraq and Syria. ISIS achieved full freedom of movement in the province in early November by defeating Taliban forces, including reinforcements likely deployed from southern Afghanistan. ISIS also compelled the local government to relocate all rural offices to the provincial capital. ISIS exploited overstretched security forces in the province and regional Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum’s exile to Turkey. The growing presence of diverse foreign fighters indicates ISIS seeks to create an external operations node for new waves of global attacks.

A global network of ISIS external operations nodes will pose new challenges for the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition. U.S. special operations forces are at risk of overstretch. ISIS is still planning attacks from Syria despite its loss of Raqqa. The U.S. has already increased anti-ISIS operations in Yemen and Somalia to keep pace with ISIS growth. ISIS is generating new global attack capability in Afghanistan while regenerating lost capability in Libya, meanwhile. The U.S. military cannot deploy enough personnel and resources to destroy every new attack cell ISIS generates. The U.S. must start to deny ISIS its non-military sources of strength such as the perception in many Sunni communities that ISIS is a “defender” of Sunni populations. American strategy thus far has instead appeared to legitimize ISIS by aligning the U.S. with the Bashar al Assad regime in Syria, Russia, and Iran. These forces are committing systematicabuses against Sunni populations in Syria that likely amount to crimes against humanity. This violence drives recruits to ISIS and in part provides rationalization for ISIS attacks against Western populations. An immediate, fundamental change in America’s strategic approach to securing the homeland is necessary in order to prevent the next Paris attack from happening here at home.