In 2012, as the Syrian civil war continued and various insurgency groups vied for a larger part in the battle against Assad’s government, Al-Qaida branches persuaded their Taliban friends to begin deploying fighters to Syria. Al-Qaida most likely wanted to sell its “global jihad” to its funders and maybe increase its power over time. As early as April 2012, Russian security agencies estimated that there were between 250 and 300 TTP members and 200 to 250 Afghans in Syria. 11 Afghans were on the list of “foreign terrorists” killed in fighting that the Syrian authorities released in May 2012. TTP leader Hafiz Saeed Khan took the initiative to assemble the first contingent for Syria by agreeing to send recruits to AQ on July 14, 2012. According to reports, he quickly organized a group of 143 volunteers and sent them to Syria to fight among the Al Nusra ranks. From that point forward, additional contingents were added. News organizations and specialized media revealed in 2013 that the TTP was sending ‘hundreds’ of volunteers to Syria to fight there.
According to the TTP itself, as 2014’s end drew near, it had already dispatched 1,000 volunteers to Syria and intended to send hundreds more. In return for Al-Qaida payments to their treasuries, the Peshawar Shura and the Miran Shah Shura (the Haqqani network) decided to work together in the recruitment of volunteers. According to one report, in April 2013, Al-Baghdadi asked Sirajuddin Haqqani to send a volunteer squad to Syria. In return for a $12 million donation to the Miran Shah Shura’s treasury and an additional $20 million to fund, outfit, and support the army, Sirajuddin consented to deploy a contingent of 400 soldiers. The Haqqanis could easily sacrifice 400 men for Syria since they had a reserve army of men ready to be called into action. The Haqqanis volunteers got paid $800 a month, which was roughly four times the salary that Taliban militants in Afghanistan received on a full-time basis. It’s possible that AQ and the Islamic State in Iraq saw the Syrian crisis as a chance to expand their control over regional jihadist activities that extended far beyond Syria, such as “Khorasan.” Drawing in volunteers who would eventually return home was a means of dispersing influence through tried techniques as had already been done in Afghanistan in the 80s and 90s.
The Syrian conflict gave AQ a great chance to resume operations since, in contrast to previous battles like the Afghan jihad, it was comparatively easier to raise large amounts of money for that conflict. The Military Commission of ISIL allegedly gave ten TTP and Taliban leaders leading the first detachment to Syria $1 million to proselytize among other jihadist groups upon their return after the first contingent led by Hafeez Saeed arrived in Syria. They began contacting the Afghan Taliban in November 2013 together with members of the TTP, IMU, Lashkar-e Taiba, Lashkar-e Jhangvi, and other groups. Afterward, many of these 10 commanders rose to prominence within IS-K. Sheikh Mohsin, for example, became the Amir of Kunar, and Sa’ad Emarati became the Amir of Logar. Both the Hafiz Saeed group and the Lashkar-e Taiba contingent departed for Al-Baghdadi by May 2013 and November 18, 2013, respectively. The contingents of Aseem Omari on August 3, 2014, Jaysh ul Adl on October 25, 2014, and Lashkar-e Jhangvi on January 1, 2014, came next. Independent of the Taliban and TTP leadership, the commanders of the first group of 143 sent to Syria by Hafiz Saeed, as well as those of Serajuddin and the Peshawar Shura contingent in Syria and Iraq, were all utilized to disseminate information and begin recruiting operations upon their return. It has been stated that Azizullah Haqqani persuaded roughly 10 Haqqani network field commanders to join what had by then finally developed into the Islamic State (IS). In exchange for money, he allegedly developed relationships with a few relatively senior Haqqani members who turned a blind eye to IS recruitment. Some of these leaders later openly joined Azizullah. At first, not much was made of the first Syrian refugees to return, their attempts to enlist more volunteers, and the early indications that they intended to create an IS branch in the area.
The Pentagon continued to assert in June 2015 that IS-K had just a “limited” relationship with IS. For instance, the NATO mission in Afghanistan, Resolute Support (RS), did not recognize until June/July 2016 that groups identifying as IS-K in Afghanistan did, in fact, have financial, strategic, and communication ties to the main IS in Iraq and Syria. The media was able to uncover IS’s propaganda efforts, including the distribution of brochures and fliers. August 2014 saw the appearance in Pakistan’s border regions of a 12-page leaflet announcing the impending IS push into “Khorasan” in Pashto and Dari. Local networks of sympathizers began to gather in the summer of 2014.
There were persistent rumors in November 2014 that there was a training camp in Kunar. When thirteen men were apprehended in Bagram (Parwan) in January 2015, it became apparent that the Islamic State had begun operations in Afghanistan. Over the next few weeks, intelligence reports from the Afghan army revealed the presence of seventy IS-K members, a mixture of foreign and Afghan fighters, in Khak-e Safed (Farah). The Afghan government eventually acknowledged in February that Islamic State-affiliated forces were operating within their borders. Propaganda materials were reportedly disseminated in several areas of Kabul in March. The various organizations that had connected to the IS perceived one another as distinct entities up to the end of 2014, but things changed in January 2015. The principal spokesman for IS-Central, Abu Muhammed al-Adnani, declared the creation of Wilayat Khorasan in an audio message on January 26, 2015. Teams from IS-K began visiting the communities after that, identifying themselves as “Daesh,” “Daesh Khorasan,” or “Khilafat Islami.”
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