Islamic State plots world terror from mountain hideouts in Afghanistan
- US intelligence official said that a recent wave of attacks in Kabul were ‘practice runs’ for even bigger attacks in Europe and United States
- Number of fighters has grown from dozens to ‘thousands and thousands’
Islamic State has lost its caliphate in Syria and Iraq, but in the forbidding mountains of northeastern Afghanistan the group is expanding its footprint, recruiting new fighters and plotting attacks on the United States and other Western countries, according to US and Afghan security officials.
Nearly two decades after the US-led invasion, the extremist group is seen as an even greater threat than the Taliban because of its increasingly sophisticated military capabilities and its strategy of targeting civilians, both in Afghanistan and abroad. Concerns run so deep that many have come to see the Taliban, which has also clashed with Isis, as a potential partner in containing it.
A US intelligence official based in Afghanistan said that a recent wave of attacks in the capital Kabul were “practice runs” for even bigger attacks in Europe and the United States.
“That is their goal. It’s just a matter of time,” he said.
“It is very scary.”
Bruce Hoffman, director of the Centre for Security Studies at Georgetown University, sees Afghanistan as a possible new base for Isis now that it has been driven from Iraq and Syria.