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Who are the foreign fighters of IS-K in Afghanistan?

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Islamic State of Khorasan IS-K, also known as the Daesh terrorist group has added a large number of foreign fighters to its organization in addition to local fighters. Pakistanis, who are always considered as the main options for leadership of IS, after two periods of leadership of this branch, now they have a significant role in the Council of Lajneh. This council has the decision-making authority of IS and evaluates and finalizes the decisions of the leader of this branch.

Also, despite a number of Pakistani IS commanders being killed in Afghanistan by the Taliban, some Pakistanis are still acting governors of some provinces, including Kunar and Laghman.

At the same time, the Uzbek fighters of Jundullah have also recently joined the IS. The findings show that the Uzbek members of the Jundallah group pledged loyalty to the IS after the assassination of their leader by the Taliban. It has been said that two thousand fighters of Jundallah have joined the IS.

Meanwhile, the IS has increased its efforts to recruit more Pakistani and Uzbek fighters. The leadership of this branch of IS-K is still trying to include Uzbek fighters who are disaffected with the Taliban.

It should be mentioned that based on the presence of these fighters, the activity of IS has spread to Central Asia states and there was some rocket incident as well.

The IS group launched its branch activity in Afghanistan and the region under the name “IS-K” for the first time in 2015. The geography that IS considered for its caliphate included parts of Afghanistan, Iran and also Pakistan.

IS-K intensified its activates in Afghanistan

Currently, the activity of this group has increased and has expanded its attacks to Central Asia. The latest report of the United Nations shows that the Khorasan branch of IS currently has between four and six thousand fighters in Afghanistan.

Recently, it has been reported that due to the geography of IS-K, most of its members have Afghan citizenship and are also present in the key positions of this group.

Definitely, the key part of IS-K is made up of foreign jihadists; People who pledged allegiance to IS due to dissatisfaction with other jihadist groups, including the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban.

Some of the members of al-Qaeda are also related to IS, but the question is, which groups of fighters are currently members of IS-K and what role do they play in expanding the scope of this group’s activities?

Pakistanis and the founding of IS-K till Council of Lajneh

Despite the presence of a number of Afghan fighters in the composition of IS-K, this branch was founded for the first time by the disgruntled Pakistani Taliban in Afghanistan.

Hafiz Saeed Orakzai, the former commander of the Pakistani Taliban, left the TTP in October 2014 due to disappointment with the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban and pledged allegiance to IS-K.

Orakzai worked as the leader of the Khorasan branch of IS for about one and a half years and was finally killed by US forces in August 2016.

After one year of the leadership of this group by Abdul Haseeb Logari, the leadership of IS-K again went to Pakistani fighters. At that time, Abdullah Orakzai, known as Aslam Farooqi, was in charge of the leadership of the group from April 2017 until he was finally arrested and imprisoned by the then Afghan security forces in 2020.

Since then, some resentful Pakistani Taliban fighters have been members of IS-K branch and as commanders, they have played a key role in the current IS insurgency.

Kunar is next target for IS

Even some of the “emirs” of the IS-K branch in Afghanistan are Pakistani fighters. Among these, Qari Fateh was working as the so-called “emir” of IS-K in Kunar province.

In February of this year, the Taliban announced by publishing pictures that they killed Qari Fateh in Kabul.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said at that time that Fateh was the head of intelligence and operations of IS-K in Afghanistan. The Taliban even named him as a responsible man for attacking mosques and diplomatic places.

The Taliban had once again announced in early June of this year that they killed another commander of the Daesh identified as Tarab Bajauri in Laghman province. This Pakistani commander was active as the “emir” of the Khorasan branch of the IS group in Laghman province. It has said that Bajauri joined IS along with Hafiz Saeed Orakzai.

Bajauri was known for his long history in military affairs and was among those top IS-K members that significantly spread the influence of the group in Kunar province. The Taliban called him an important member of the Khorasan IS branch in Afghanistan. Such positions of the Taliban show that Pakistani fighters are one of the main pillars of IS-K and are actively present in Afghanistan under the control of the Taliban.

IS key members arrested and killed

Currently, Asadullah Orakzai is another prominent Pakistani commander of IS-K branch. He works as the leader of Daesh in Laghman and is also a member of the Council of Lajneh. According to the reports, Orakzai is in charge of this IS-K leadership council and its members decide on the activities of this group in “Khorasan region”.

Orakzai, alias Aslam Farooqi, the leader of Daesh’s so-called Khorasan Province affiliate, arrested in Afghanistan

Qari Fateh was also a key member of this council where he had a key say on the future activities of the branch in Afghanistan.

Also, Saifullah Orakzai, as one of the prominent commanders of the IS-K branch, is a member of Lajneh council.

In this way, the findings show that Pakistani fighters are active members of the IS-K branch, who are present in Afghanistan, and at least in addition to the experience of leading this branch twice, they are active as governors in the provinces and also as military and intelligence commanders.

At the same time, IS-K is trying its best to increase the number of its Pakistani fighters. This branch of IS has made the issue of the allegiance of Pakistani fighters a part of its future plan.

In this process, people who are dissatisfied with the conditions of working with the Pakistani Taliban are attracted to IS in order to expand the activities of this group in eastern Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan.

It should be mentioned that most of the Pakistani members of the Khorasan branch of IS have been attracted to this group due to dissatisfaction with their previous groups, and due to the high level of dissatisfaction, the number of Pakistani IS fighters is likely to increase.

Jundullah group joined Daesh with thousands of fighters

The findings show that the Uzbek members of the Jundallah group have also joined IS-K in the north of the country. According to the information, except for a small part of this group, most of its Uzbek commanders and fighters have joined IS in Khorasan.

IS has incorporated a branch of the Jundullah group, which consists of Uzbek fighters in northern Afghanistan. In this way, Mullah Saad, a citizen of Uzbekistan, has started working as the leader of this group in IS-K and Osama Ghazi from Uzbekistan as his deputy.

In addition to these two leaders of the Jundullah group, about two thousand fighters of this group and thousands of their supporters in the provinces of Takhar, Kunduz, Badakhshan and Faryab have also become part of IS-K.

This fundamental development took place after the Uzbek members of the Jundullah group became distrustful of the Taliban’s intentions. According to the findings, Uzbek fighters played a major role in the fall of the North to the hands of the Taliban, but after the return of the Taliban into the power, the leadership and members of Jundullah faced their indifference.

Besides this, Taliban people even assassinated some of its leaders to control this group. The information shows that Usman Ghazi, one of the Uzbek immigrants who entered Afghanistan with five thousand Uzbek citizens during the rule of Burhanuddin Rabbani almost four decades ago, later became a member of Jundallah based on Abdul Malik Rigi’s request.

At that time, Rigi was one of the leaders of Jundullah, who was active in Iran, and was executed after being arrested by the security forces of Iran.

But after the fall of the first government of the Taliban in 2001, Ghazi went to Pakistan to manage his group’s guerrilla attacks against the previous government along with the Afghan Taliban. According to the order of Mullah Omar, the founder of the Taliban, he returned to Zabul with hundreds of members of this group, and in 2016, he decided to unofficially pledge allegiance to IS in consultation with some Taliban leaders.

Jundallah joins IS to revenge against the Taliban

Apparently, this scenario was part of making a case for his removal, because Usman Ghazi was ambushed by Taliban commanders in the following weeks and was killed along with his wife and several children on the road to Zabul.

According to the findings, this action caused Osama Ghazi, his son, to go to Kandahar and Badakhshan with 150 other Jundallah members from Zabul, where his father was present, and then leave there. But he was waiting to take revenge from the Taliban until he joined IS with all the members of his group after the Taliban regained control.

Meanwhile, Daesh has used the members of Jundallah to expand its activities to Central Asia. For example, a member of this group, who was active in Faryab under the command of Salahuddin Ayubi, launched a rocket attack on Uzbekistan.

On the other hand, IS in Khorasan has increased its efforts to get allegiance from Salahuddin Ayubi, the commander of Uzbek origin and disaffected Taliban. He has a close relationship with the fighters from the north and seems to be able to connect IS with some other armed groups in Tajikistan and other parts of the northern part of the country.

Also, according to its plans to expand its activities to Central Asia, IS is seeking more contact with Uzbek fighters. This effort somehow highlights the connection of this group with some commanders and fighters of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

This is despite the fact that Daesh has previously assigned a team responsible to monitor Tajikistan and get support from there. It should be remembered that this group, in addition to Khorasan, also pays serious attention to the Indian subcontinent.

IS has a wider plan not only in Afghanistan and Pakistan

According to the reports, the IS leadership has ordered its members in the Indian subcontinent to intensify their activities in India and Pakistan in mid-2022. Abul Hasan al-Hashemi Qureshi, the then leader of IS in Iraq, asked Sheikh Zubair Ahmad, the governor of IS in India, for positive changes in that geography.

Following the same order, Sheikh Zubair Ahmed had decided to accelerate its propaganda staff and used Telegram as a social tool to spread its propaganda activities.

IS declared a caliphate in 2014, and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was considered the first leader of the group. It should be mentioned that this group has extensive activities in Afghanistan in addition to Iraq and some other Arabic countries.

These terrorist activities have been deepened after the return of the Taliban to power and have included attacks on diplomatic places and rocket attacks on Central Asian countries.

Considering the recent changes of IS and the joining of foreign fighters in the rank of Khorasan, it seems that this group has plans to exert more influence in Khorasan Province. Previously, the information showed that IS-K is also seeking to capture Kunar province, a case that has been delayed after the evaluation of the Council of Lajneh.

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Chinese Politburo signals cautious confidence as Beijing pivots toward targeted tech support

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03/08/2026

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The mid-year meeting of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Politburo has long served as a critical evaluation point for Beijing. The session provides the central government with an opportunity to review developments from the first half of the year and steer the country toward a more realistic economic course in the months ahead.

The latest statement from the top leadership signals cautious confidence. The release indicates that policymakers are favoring a stable, targeted approach over the broad-based stimulus measures that characterized previous years. As China manages its economic transition, the post-Covid era of aggressive spending has clearly drawn to a close. In its place, a strategic and structural approach has taken hold, prioritizing resilience and stability over short-term capital injections.

According to the outcomes of the Politburo meeting, the policy orientation will continue to target specific sectors. Financial support will be directed away from the property market and toward high-tech emerging industries such as artificial intelligence and semiconductors. In the real estate sector, the objective remains stabilizing market confidence and keeping debt risks under control.

Infrastructure investment is likewise being reshaped around the concept of “new infrastructure.” The focus is no longer solely on concrete and physical structures; smart power grids, information technology networks, and data infrastructure have taken precedence.

This approach signifies an investment in future competitiveness rather than simply pumping capital into the economy’s more stagnant sectors. Serving as a new driver of growth, digital infrastructure fulfills a dual purpose: supporting domestic demand in the short term while safeguarding technological competitiveness over the long term.

Finally, Beijing is signaling a more conciliatory posture in international trade. The Chinese leadership aims to establish a more balanced trade framework to mitigate concerns voiced by trade partners such as the European Union over what has been termed “China Shock 2.0.”

As the administration prepares for critical leadership changes next year, its primary focus will remain on stability across both economic and social spheres.

China continues to strike a balance between realistic growth targets and systemic restructuring, maintaining policy leeway to absorb potential external shocks. Beijing’s economic strategy reflects a pragmatic assessment of both domestic and international challenges.

Struggling with weak demand, the domestic economy is not yet in a position to anchor national growth independently. Expansion continues to rely heavily on a record trade surplus alongside the impressive export performance of high-tech and clean energy sectors. However, this reliance has drawn pushback from several trading partners.

To stimulate domestic economic activity and ease trade tensions, Beijing unveiled its first standalone five-year plan focused on consumption. Released in July by the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Commerce, the plan targets an increase in retail sales to 60 trillion yuan (approximately $8.9 trillion) by 2030. This represents an increase of roughly 20% compared to 2025 levels.

To improve profit margins for small businesses, regulatory authorities are tackling the issue of “involution”—described as excessive internal competition—by curbing platform monopolies and preventing destructive price wars. While these structural adjustments may take longer to yield results, they are viewed as a more sustainable and effective alternative to direct cash handouts.

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Chinese chipmaker profits surge 2,500% on explosive AI computing demand

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6 days ago

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28/07/2026

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Major Chinese microchip manufacturers saw their profits surge by 2,579.5% in the first half of 2026, driven by unprecedented demand for artificial intelligence and computing capacity.

Data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics, cited by the South China Morning Post (SCMP), underscored the industry’s sharp upward trajectory.

Yu Weining, senior statistician at China’s National Bureau of Statistics, explained that this surge is directly connected to the accelerating integration of artificial intelligence across various sectors.

Yu noted that this process has increased the need for computing capacity. The demand for computational processes also lifted profits across the entire electronics industry by 97% year-on-year.

Profits of major Chinese industrial enterprises with an annual revenue exceeding 20 million yuan ($2.9 million) rose 18.7% in the first six months of the year, reaching 4 trillion yuan.

In the first half of 2025, before the global data center construction process had begun, industrial profits had dropped by 1.8% to 3.4 trillion yuan, while profit growth in the electronics sector remained at 3.5%.

The SCMP reported that the global AI boom has generated explosive demand for high-performance computing systems and memory chips, causing a structural pivot in China’s industrial landscape.

Data showed that integrated circuit production in the first half of the year grew by 23% year-on-year to reach approximately 280 billion units.

This figure means that the country produced an average of more than 1.5 billion chips per day.

The profit growth is also corroborated by forecasts from China’s leading chipmakers. Shenzhen Longsys Electronics, one of the largest memory module manufacturers, expects its profits to increase by more than 600-fold in the first half of the year.

Flash memory maker GigaDevice projects that its net profit will surge by approximately 1,099% year-on-year due to supply shortages and rising product prices.

Chinese companies in the AI chip segment are also demonstrating strong profit growth, albeit at a more moderate pace compared to the memory market.

Hygon Information Technology, which develops central processing units and computing units for artificial intelligence, projects that its profits will rise by up to 52.3%.

CXMT hits record high on Shanghai Stock Exchange

Shares of Chinese chipmaker CXMT gained more than 500% on their first day of trading on the Shanghai Stock Exchange on July 27, jumping from 8.66 yuan to 55 yuan.

As a result of this sharp surge in its shares, CXMT’s market valuation reached 3.65 trillion yuan ($539 billion), making the company China’s most valuable publicly traded firm.

At the peak of the rally—even though quoted prices underwent a slight correction toward the close of the trading day—CXMT surpassed Tencent, which was trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of $514 billion.

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Massive student movement over exam leaks forces resignation of India’s education minister

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1 week ago

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27/07/2026

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Indian public examination reform proposals follow education minister’s resignation after nationwide youth protests

India’s federal government introduced legislation in parliament on Monday to amend the law governing public examinations, days after the “Cockroach” movement forced the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan following nationwide youth protests.

The bill incorporates enhanced sanctions, including longer prison sentences and higher fines for those found responsible for exam leaks and irregularities.

The demonstrations are widely viewed as the most significant youth-led challenge faced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi since he took office in 2014.

What triggered the protests?

Nearly 2 million students took the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), an undergraduate medical entrance examination, in May. The federal National Testing Agency cancelled the exam on May 12 following allegations that question papers had been leaked. The examination was re-administered on June 21.

Young people took to the streets to protest against examination fraud, youth unemployment, and a perceived lack of future prospects.

According to a BBC report, the unemployment rate among university and college graduates aged 15 to 25 in the country stands at a critically high level of 40%. The addition of corruption in public examinations to existing economic strain broke the patience of the youth.

Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the Cockroach Public Party (CJP) movement, led the protests.

The movement derived its name from remarks made in May by Supreme Court Judge Surya Kant, who used the terms “cockroach” and “parasite” in a derogatory reference to unemployed youth and protesters. Young demonstrators adopted the insult as a symbol and named their movement after it.

How the movement unfolded

Young protesters organized street demonstrations demanding the resignation of Education Minister Pradhan. Dipke, who initiated the movement in New Delhi, subsequently organized protests in other parts of the country.

Sonam Wangchuk, one of the protesters, began a hunger strike at the demonstration site in support of the movement. As his physical condition deteriorated, authorities forcibly transferred him to a hospital.

The reaction to Wangchuk’s forcible removal from the protest site caused crowds at the venue to expand rapidly.

Tens of thousands of protesters faced tear gas and baton charges by police while attempting to march on parliament. Some demonstrators engaged in clashes with law enforcement officers.

CJP leaders held talks with ministers from the Modi government, who requested time to evaluate the protesters’ demands internally.

Modi called for unity among lawmakers in the ruling coalition to implement strict measures against exam paper leaks, punish those responsible, and establish a secure, leak-proof system.

Opposition representatives led by Rahul Gandhi staged a sit-in at the entrance of Modi’s official residence demanding Pradhan’s resignation. They were briefly detained by police before being released.

Opposition lawmakers supporting the student protesters disrupted proceedings in parliament. Demonstrations expanded to other regions of the country, including the financial hub of Mumbai.

In his first direct statement regarding the protests, published in a post on X, Modi announced that special courts would be established to prosecute individuals involved in exam paper leaks. Protesters rejected the proposal.

Movement leaders held a second round of talks with the government after Wangchuk ended his 26-day hunger strike.

Following those discussions, the government requested time until the afternoon of the following day to respond to the demand for Pradhan’s resignation.

Education Minister Pradhan subsequently announced his resignation, stating that he was stepping down in light of the situation at the protest site and across the country, as well as to prevent “external forces” from exploiting the environment.

On July 26, Modi announced the creation of a task force headed by technology entrepreneur Nandan Nilekani to overhaul the country’s examination system.

On Monday, July 27, the government presented a bill to parliament proposing amendments to the law governing public examinations. The legislation introduces stiffer penalties for offenders, including extended prison terms and increased monetary fines.

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