Introduction
The exit of the US forces and the Taliban’s subsequent takeover of Kabul in August 2021 has significantly reshaped the Afghanistan-Pakistan militant landscape, emboldening the Taliban’s allies and adversaries alike. Its ally, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Pakistan’s largest militant group, has experienced a strong resurgence, intensifying attacks against Pakistani security forces while also operating from its safe haven in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
Despite the Islamic State in Khorasan province (ISKP) – IS’s Afghan affiliate – facing senior leadership losses from the Taliban’s aggressive crackdown, the group has waged a persistent and deadly insurgency against Taliban forces and Afghan minorities, mainly Shia Hazaras. Concurrently, it has also diversified and expanded its recruitment and media campaigns. The group’s superior external operations capabilities are evident in its involvement in recent terror attacks across Russia, Iran, and Turkey, as well as recent terror plots in Europe, reflecting ISKP’s growing transnational threat.
Simultaneously, ISKP has also stepped up its constant flow of anti-Taliban propaganda campaigns through its mouthpiece, Al Azaim-media foundation, to undermine the Taliban’s governing credentials and religious authority. Specifically criticising the Taliban’s dealings with Western powers, ISKP argues that the Taliban’s actions are contrary to Islamic law. ISKP claims the Taliban has “abandoned the global jihad against infidel regimes” after being installed in power by Americans. The group further accuses the Taliban regime of serving as pawns of foreign powers like the US, Russia and China in return for international legitimacy and financial gain while ignoring the worldwide suffering of Muslims. Rooted in the ideological rift from the 1980s, ISKP, a Salafi jihadist group, accuses the Taliban of following the “highly flawed” Deobandi school of thought, labelling it as an apostate “Pashto-centric ethno-nationalist movement.”
However, in contrast to its aggressive posture toward the Afghan Taliban, Al Qaeda, and other jihadist groups, ISKP’s interactions with the TTP have been notably distinct. Although ISKP was born out of the disaffected TTP and Afghan Taliban members, it had, until last year, largely avoided physical confrontations and open hostilities in its media propaganda with the group. This is to deprive their common enemy, Pakistani security forces, of any strategic advantage, with both groups ostensibly having tactically co-operated in their areas of control in Pakistan.
Furthermore, ISKP’s criticism of the TTP was relatively less belligerent, with the TTP’s relationship with the Afghan Taliban not being overtly targeted in its polemical rhetoric. However, since June, ISKP has produced media products issuing ideological rebuttals to attack the TTP’s apostasy, which it believes stems from its deep historical and organisational ties with the Afghan Taliban. This Insight explores ISKP’s recent anti-TTP and Taliban narratives disseminated through its mouthpiece, Al Azaim Foundation, and similar criticisms raised by pro-ISKP supporters.
TTP’s primary media outlet, Umar Media, has also increased its output of sophisticated media productions over the past two years. It releases print and audiovisual material in Pashto, Urdu, English, and Dari, predominantly propagating a virulent anti-state narrative while largely avoiding overtly reproaching IS or ISKP.
ISKP’s recent anti-TTP discourse
At the end of May 2024, in a video shared on X, Qari Shoaib Bajauri, a senior ideologue and member of the TTP leadership council, rebuked ISKP as being composed of ‘extremist elements from the TTP’, al-Qaeda, and the Afghan Taliban. He stressed that the TTP has no affiliations or agreements with ISKP, but is, however, not at war with them. He stressed the TTP’s primary objective is to wage jihad against the Pakistani state and establish its control in Pakistan’s tribal areas where it can enforce its own interpretation of Shaira.
Following this, ISKP’s Al-Azaim media retaliated by releasing a 47-minute audio message in July titled “They Lost Their Credibility in Islam by Whitewashing Themselves to the Infidels.” In this rebuttal, ISKP decried the statement of the senior TTP leader and said that the TTP defectors who joined ISKP initially, such as ISKP’s founding leader Hafiz Saeed Khan, Gul Zaman Fateh, were “authentic mujahideen”, dismissing any ideological affinity and cooperation between both the groups. ISKP further slammed the TTP as a ‘tribal Deobandi local militia’ that restricts its fight within the borders of Pakistan, contrary to its global offensive jihad. Since 2018, TTP has emphasised that it doesn’t have any regional or global agenda beyond Pakistan.
Furthermore, in the audio recording, ISKP argued that the Taliban not only directs the TTP’s ideological stance, but also wields control over its operational trajectory in Pakistan. It further slammed the TTP as a proxy of pro-democratic forces and Pakistan’s Islamist political parties like Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazal (JUI-F), which has been regularly targeted by ISKP.
This later sparked similar discussions amongst pro-ISKP supporters on Telegram, who reiterated that the TTP has “strayed from its proper ideological path” following the killing of its leader, Hakeemullah Mehsud, in the US drone strike in 2013. Following his death, there were disputes over leadership succession, and TTP faced growing internal rifts, leading to the defection of its senior commanders, who went on to pledge allegiance to IS, subsequently forming ISKP in 2015.
ISKP supporters further contend that the Taliban regime “is desperate to establish official diplomatic ties” and curry favour with foreign states, mainly Pakistan and China, at the expense of TTP’s strategic interests. They allege the TTP has “allowed itself to be exploited by the Taliban regime,” which they claim has shielded Pakistan from TTP attacks and coerced TTP earlier into unsuccessful ceasefire negotiations with the Pakistani government. Further, in a book released in June 2024 discrediting the Taliban regime’s Islamic credentials (Figure 1), ISKP advised the “ignorant TTP leadership” to thoroughly study IS’s theological literature in depth to correct its theological beliefs that are dictated by the Afghan Taliban as shown in Figure 2. Yet, ISKP sympathisers argue that ISKP should avoid initiating hostilities unless provoked by the TTP and instead absorb its militants into ISKP’s ranks through proselytisation.
Figure 1: Cover page of ISKP’s book released by Al Azaim media foundation “TTP on the path of Taliban militia”
Figure 2: ISKP advises TTP to sever its ideological ties with the Taliban and instead adopt the Islamic State’s doctrine to rectify its beliefs.
Figure 3: Supporters in a pro-IS discussion room denounce TTP as a deviant group owing to its allegiance to the Afghan Taliban.
In a 71-minute audio released at the end of July, an ISKP ideologue rebuked former TTP deputy leader Sheikh Khalid Haqqani, who had questioned the legitimacy of the IS’s caliphate, arguing it lacked the essential conditions for establishing one due to a lack of expansive territorial control and disapproval from other jihadist groups and the Ummah (Muslim community). ISKP’s imam thus discredited Sheikh Khalid as an “uneducated mullah”, calling him a hypocrite and dismissing his criticisms as baseless.
The ISKP ideologue pointed out inconsistencies in the TTP’s own theological standards, questioning how the TTP could pledge allegiance to a “deviant” Taliban Emir Haibatullah Akhundzada, who only wields control over a “small corrupt emirate” in Afghanistan. He further asserted that the TTP’s scholars are attacking IS’s theological credentials to dissuade “believers” from joining its ranks. In recent issues of ISKP’s Pashto Voice of Khurasan magazine, denunciations of the TTP have become more nuanced. The TTP leadership is portrayed as prioritising worldly comforts over jihad, exploiting the religious sentiments of Pakistani youth to recruit them, appeasing foreign powers, and being backed by India.
In light of ISKP’s intensifying anti-TTP media offensive, it is notable that, unlike other jihadist groups that have overtly condemned IS and ISKP for their extremist violence, TTP leader Noor Wali Mehsud has shied away from declaring an official stance or openly denouncing ISKP. Meanwhile, the Taliban has aggressively countered ISKP’s hostile narratives through its Al Mirsad media website.
Conclusion
Despite frequent takedowns of ISKP’s official and supporter accounts on its digital lifeline Telegram, the group has become adept at evading moderation, continuing to produce and disseminate a steady stream of content in multiple languages, allowing the rapid circulation of its media propaganda, attack claims also running crowdfunding donations for their activities.
TTP and its supporter communities have primarily relied on Telegram and WhatsApp, to disseminate their propaganda, political commentaries, regional security developments and attack claims. Unlike IS and other extremist groups like Al Qaeda, as per the authors’ monitoring, TTP’s Umar Media and its supporter networks have faced fewer digital crackdowns on Telegram and other social media platforms.
This can be attributed to global intelligence agencies like Europol and tech companies prioritising the fight against more lethal global terror groups such as IS, Al-Qaeda and their affiliates, both on the battlefield and in the digital realm. As a result, terror groups with a local or regional focus, like the TTP, have been able to slip through the cracks to operate with relative freedom on Telegram. The TTP’s Umar Media, and other supporter TTP media channels with hundreds of subscribers and discussion groups on Telegram have been operating without interruption or bans for over a year. TTP media propagandists have also openly solicited donations for the organisation on Telegram, raising growing concerns about the platform’s enforcement of its content moderation policies. This comes at a time when Telegram’s founder, Pavel Durov, is already facing intense legal scrutiny for his application’s role in hosting and facilitating the spread of illicit content, such as child pornography and extremist propaganda.
Figure 4: TTP media propagandists posted a plea for donations for the organisation on Telegram.
In conclusion, tech companies should prioritise developing advanced AI detection systems to detect the unique propaganda tactics these groups employ, such as regional languages, dialects and coded language. Additionally, forming region-specific monitoring teams with expertise in militancy and security issues coupled with knowledge of local languages and cultures can enhance the effectiveness of content moderation. Finally, establishing stronger cross-platform coordination can prevent extremist groups from easily migrating their media content to other platforms.
Meanwhile, the online feud between ISKP and TTP has the potential to turn into violent confrontations, potentially benefiting Pakistan’s counterterrorism efforts. To bolster their operational strength and longevity, TTP and ISKP have opportunistically forged strategic alliances and mergers with other like-minded groups operating in Pakistan’s newly merged districts bordering Afghanistan. TTP and ISKP have also, on multiple occasions, claimed responsibility for the same attacks, further reflecting growing competition amongst the groups for influence and recruits. Thus, the fluid militant landscape in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, marked by shifting alliances and deepening rivalries among insurgent groups, presents a formidable challenge to Pakistani and regional counter-terrorism agencies. This necessitates a rigorous monitoring of their operations and media propaganda to counter the growing terror threat from these groups.