ISIS-K threat grows as it targets disaffected Muslims with sophisticated propaganda

“Lucas Webber, senior threat intelligence analyst at Tech Against Terrorism, said ISIS-K initially focused on Tajik immigrants in the West but has broadened its effort to other ethnic communities. The group is now seeking to exploit the isolation and alienation felt by Afghans and other Muslim immigrants and refugees struggling to build a life in unfamiliar, secular societies."

“It’s not surprising that they may have tapped into resentments amongst Afghans,” said Webber, who is also a research fellow at the Soufan Center, a foreign policy research group based in New York.

The online messages, which are sent out over social media networks, TikTok and the dark web, portray ISIS-K as “the only true and pure Islamist militant organisation fighting against governments in the region and hostile foreign influences from adversaries such as the United States,” Webber said.

The propaganda, building on decades of messaging from Al Qaeda and other militant groups, focuses on U.S. military interventions in Muslim countries and the American military’s presence in other Muslim countries, painting the United States as “an empire in decline,” Webber said.

NBC News, 20 October 2024