I.S. OPERATING UNDER THE NOSE

Cells comprising students, professors, shopkeepers evading authorities while carrying out deadly attacks, say experts

MIDDLE-CLASS Afghans turned jihadists have assisted the Islamic State (IS) group’s expansion from its stronghold in the restive east to here, analysts say, helping to make the capital one of the deadliest places in the country.

IS has claimed nearly 20 attacks here in 18 months, with cells, including students, professors and shopkeepers, evading Afghan and US security forces.

It is an alarming development for Kabul’s war-weary civilians and beleaguered security forces, who are struggling to beat back the resurgent Taliban, as well as for the US counter-terrorism mission in the country.

“This is not just a group that has a rural bastion in eastern Afghanistan — it is staging highcasualty, high-visibility attacks in the nation’s capital and I think that’s something to be worried about,” said analyst Michael Kugelman of the Wilson Center in Washington.

The IS-Khorasan Province (ISK), the Middle East group’s affiliate in Afghanistan and Pakistan, emerged in the region in 2014, largely made up of disaffected Taliban fighters and other jihadist groups in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia.

It claimed its first attack here in the summer of 2016. Since then, the group has struck at security forces and Shias with increasing frequency, helped by its growing network in the capital.

There is no shortage of recruits, analysts say.

IS has successfully tapped a rich vein of extremism in Afghanistan that has existed for decades and crosses socio-economic groups — fanned by growing Internet access among urban youth.

“We are talking about a generation which has been desensitised to different types of violence and violent extremism,” said Borhan Osman, senior analyst with the International Crisis Group.

“It should not come as a surprise that some of the youth inculcated in the ideology of jihadism embrace the next version of jihadism, the most violent one.”

Supporters of IS-K cells here hide in the open, living with their families and going to classes or work every day, Osman said.

The militants meet at night to discuss jihad, or holy war, and plot attacks on targets in the city they know well — well enough to adapt to changes, such as tightened security in the wake of a massive truck bomb last May that killed 150 people. AFP