Daesh fighters who waged a bloody campaign in Syria and Iraq are heading to Afghanistan to continue their battle and help plot “spectacular” attacks against America, a US official has told AFP.
The warning comes as Daesh seeks to assert a regional influence after the loss of its self-proclaimed Middle East “caliphate,” and as South Asia reels from a series of devastating attacks.
“We know some have already made their way back here and are trying to transfer the knowledge, skills and experience they learned over there,” a senior US intelligence official in Kabul told AFP in a recent interview.
“If we don’t continue counterterrorism pressure against (Daesh in Afghanistan), there will be an attack in our homeland — and a spectacular attack — probably within the year,” added the official, who asked not to be named for security reasons.
The official did not describe the nature of any plot, but Daesh has been linked to or inspired several big attacks in America, including a 2016 mass shooting in Florida.
The gunman, who had sworn allegiance to Daesh, killed 49 people in an Orlando nightclub.
The warning comes as Daesh seeks to assert a regional influence after the loss of its self-proclaimed Middle East ‘caliphate’
A recent UN report said Daesh in Afghanistan has between 2,500 and 4,000 members — about the same number the Pentagon was citing two years ago, even though officials say thousands of extremists have been killed.
US Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said after a recent visit to Afghanistan that Daesh in the Khorasan, or IS-K as the local affiliate is known, had grown in both numbers and capabilities.
In 2017, the Pentagon offered a rosy assessment that IS-K could be wiped out by the end of that year. But Resolute Support, the NATO mission in Afghanistan, underestimated the group’s tenacity.
“Resolute Support realized that this was bigger than a little problem in southern Nangarhar and instead would take something more to address it,” the official said, referring to IS-K’s bastion in eastern Afghanistan.
The official and a team of experts arrived in Kabul over the past year to help General Scott Miller — the four-star general in charge of US and NATO forces — tackle IS-K.
He did not say how many former “caliphate” fighters are in Afghanistan, but argued “any number is significant.”
Europeans — including from Britain and France — are among those who have joined IS-K, he added. Their presence could complicate any peace deal with the Taliban, who have pledged to prevent terrorists using Afghanistan as a haven to plot foreign attacks.
“Unless or until we get the Taliban to work and address this problem as well, they will never be able to keep this land free from outwardly facing organizations,” the official said.
The US has led an unrelenting air campaign, including famously dropping the so-called Mother Of All Bombs (MOAB), the Pentagon’s largest non-nuclear bomb, to smash extremist tunnels and bunkers.
But the well-funded group has replenished its ranks with foreign fighters and local recruits looking for a decent wage.
Daesh in the Khorasan, or IS-K as the local affiliate is known, had grown in both numbers and capabilities
IS-K has suffered losses in the northern Jowzjan province but maintains strongholds in Nangarhar and Kunar in the east, where they have beaten back Taliban forces and displaced thousands of locals.
Internationally, Daesh claimed responsibility for a string of recent attacks, including the Easter Sunday bombings that killed 253 people in churches and hotels in Sri Lanka.
On Monday, the extremists’ elusive leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi apparently resurfaced in a propaganda video, his first purported appearance since 2014.
IS-K conducted six high-profile attacks in Kabul in 2016, according to the US. In 2017 that number grew to 18, and last year there were 24. On April 20, Daesh claimed a suicide attack on a government ministry.
Some Afghan officials question whether Daesh always oversees such assaults, or if the Taliban and Pakistan groups such as the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Haqqani network are responsible.