Concept of Khorasan by Islamic State and Indian Ramifications
Capt. SB Tyagi
The IS Background:
The relationship between the Taliban and the Islamic State (IS – also known as ISIS, ISIL and Da’esh) is emerging as the most influential factor in the future of violent jihadi movements in the Afghanistan and Pakistan region. To date, however, the Taliban finds itself in a bind, able to neither welcome nor resist IS in Afghanistan.
For the Taliban, IS poses a strategic, potentially existential, threat, as both appeal to similar recruits; but the Taliban leadership has been reluctant to take a stand against IS due to their similar ideological and political goals, and shared enemies. Meanwhile, as the Afghan Taliban enter a peace process with the Kabul government, fear of losing their more radical or criminal supporters to IS likely weighs upon negotiations.
Is it a Terror Outfit or a Terrorist Country?
Infamous as a ruthlessly effective terror organization with wide digital, financial and personnel reach, the impression of an IS presence in Afghanistan is perhaps as important as the reality. Formal interviews and informal discussions reveal at least three popular explanations for their ability to make inroads in Afghanistan. One suggests that the U.S. tolerates IS and generally promotes Islamic radicalism in the region to undermine China, Iran and Russia. A second points to Pakistan support of IS as its new strategy in Afghanistan, having lost influence over the Afghan Taliban. In a third, the Afghan government supports IS to fuel feuds and infighting between Taliban.
A seven-step ISIS programme, dating back almost 20 years, includes the US being provoked into declaring war on the Islamic world between 2000 and 2003 and an uprising against Arab rulers between 2010 and 2013, the report said. IS have up to 50,000 members and cash and assets of nearly 2 billion pounds, partly due to their control of oil and gas fields in Iraq and Syria, it said.
What is Khorasan?
The Islamic State jihadist group announced that it has established a province in Khorasan, a historic name for a region that covers Afghanistan, Pakistan, parts of India, and other surrounding countries. Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, identified as an Islamic State spokesman, made the announcement in an audiotaped speech posted on jihadi forums.
Reportedly, the ISIS spokesman said, “We bring the mujahidin the good news of the Islamic State’s expansion to Khorasan.” Al-Adnani declared that former Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander Hafiz Saeed Khan will serve as the governor of the province in Khorasan, which has numerous spelling variations.
Former Guantanamo Bay detainee and former Taliban commander in southern Afghanistan, Abdul Rauf Khadim, was named the deputy governor. The expansion of the so-called ISIS caliphate into Khorasan comes barely four months after al-Qaeda declared the formation of a new branch in the Indian subcontinent. In February, 2015 the US killed Mullah Abdul Rauf Khadim, the Khorasan province’s deputy emir, in an airstrike.
“The term ‘Khorasan’ refers to a region that encompasses large areas of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Iran,” reported The Long War Journal in May 2012, before ISIS’s rise to prominence. “Jihadists consider the Khorasan to be the area where they will inflict the first defeat against their enemies in the Muslim version of Armageddon. The final battle is to take place in the Levant – Israel, Syria, and Lebanon.”
“Khorasan is an old name for Afghanistan, and is a word that carried mythical overtones for some Muslims after an ancient prophecy that black flags would once again fly in Khorasan before the end of the world”.
Islamic State plans to take over India by this year
The Islamic State plans to take over large parts of the world, including almost the entire Indian subcontinent, by the next five years, according to a chilling map that features in a new book on the dreaded terror group. According to the map, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) plans to take control of the Middle East, North Africa, most of the Indian subcontinent and parts of Europe, within the next five years, to complete its caliphate. The caliphate — a state governed by Sharia law which ISIS plan to claim — covers areas from Spain in the west to China in the east; the Mirror reported citing the map.
The map reveals the calculated way ISIS plans to take over the world by 2020.
According to the map, Andalus is the Arabic name given to the parts of Spain, Portugal and France that were occupied by the Moors from the 8th to the 15th century while the Indian subcontinent would come under ‘Khurasan’.
BBC reporter Andrew Hosken, who includes the map of the targeted areas in his new book ‘Empire of Fear: Inside the Islamic State’, said ISIS wants “to take over all of what they see as the Islamic world.
Pakistan Spearheading IS Entry in India:
According to reports, a group based in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region was recognised as an ally of the IS and accorded the status of ‘Wilayat’ by the Islamist organisation. Ithas been informed that the terror group is a subsidiary of the Islamic State (IS) in Pakistan, with its leaders suspected of having close links with the Pakistani establishment.
Islamic State’s nexus with terrorists in Pakistan having links with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Al-Qaeda and the Pakistan Army has alarmed the Indian intelligence agencies along with the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) that has alerted the PMO and the Ministry of Home Affairs. According to the report, the Wilayat Khurasan’s religious head Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost had links with LeT leaders in the tribal areas of the Afghanistan-Pakistan region and a military leader Asmatullah Muawiya formerly linked to al-Qaeda, and had made peace with the Pakistan Army. Asmatullah Muawiya had threatened India in recent times and must not be taken litely.
Source: Capt. SB Tyagi via WHN Media Network
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