Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) is developing transnational networks, complicating assessments of the threat to Central Asia. The group also retains territorial ambitions.
One conventional way to assess the threat is to look at a map: the situation in Afghanistan’s northern provinces, their proximity to the borders of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, the number of militants, and the possibility of infiltration into neighboring states.
An August report by the United Nations (UN) Security Council’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, based on information received through June 9, said the ability of terrorist groups to operate in Afghanistan remained an enduring threat to neighboring countries and Central Asia. The report also said ISKP had reportedly moved toward northern Afghanistan. During the period under review, the group suffered serious setbacks amid Taliban and Pakistani operations and was in the process of rebuilding.
But looking only at Afghanistan’s borders is no longer enough. The Central Asian dimension of ISKP encompasses the group’s activities in Afghanistan, risks to the five Central Asian states themselves, and the involvement of some individuals from the region in transnational networks operating outside it.
Old Networks and New Structures
ISKP’s Central Asian dimension did not emerge from nowhere. Even before the group appeared in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, armed organizations formed by people from Central Asia were active there. Among them was the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). At different times, the IMU maintained ties with al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
In 2014, the Islamic State declared a “caliphate.” A year later, a faction of the IMU pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.
Lucas Webber, a researcher of extremist networks, and Bruce Pannier, a longtime analyst of Central Asian politics and security, have highlighted the role of an Uzbek-language propaganda infrastructure associated with the IMU in ISKP’s outreach to Central Asian audiences. Their analysis was published by the Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET).
The region’s older militant organizations have not simply been absorbed into ISKP. A July 2025 UN report separately mentions IMU members and fighters from other groups being used by Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities in law-enforcement and army units. A single “Central Asian network,” however, would misrepresent this fragmented environment of different connections and organizational affiliations.
The same report described the recruitment of people from Central Asia, their significant presence among ISKP’s rank and file, and the group’s attempts to operate outside Afghanistan.
In a 2024 article for CTC Sentinel, researchers Noah Tucker and Edward Lemon examined the involvement of Tajik citizens in a number of ISKP-linked attacks and networks. They argued that the recent surge in attacks and arrests was partly the “long tail” of the earlier Islamic State mobilization, including networks that had persisted after it.
A February 2026 report by the UN Security Council’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team said ISKP continued to develop a network of cells capable of projecting a threat across the region and internationally.
Propaganda Does Not Equal Mass Support
Central Asian audiences occupy a noticeable place in ISKP propaganda. GNET research describes material in Uzbek and Tajik and attempts to exploit local political and social grievances to attract supporters.
But the existence of such content primarily indicates the audience the group is trying to reach. It does not establish the actual scale of support for ISKP or its capacity to mobilize people in Central Asia.
Tucker and Lemon estimate that more than 4,000 people from Central Asia traveled to Syria and Iraq to join militant organizations. At the time their article was published, the authors found no evidence of a new mobilization on a comparable scale.
Radicalization Outside Central Asia
The same study linked a significant share of recruitment involving people from the region to migrant and diaspora communities outside Central Asia. The authors identified Kazakhstan as an exception, where internal migration and displacement have played a greater role.
A person’s country of origin, in such cases, is only one part of their biography. A migrant may live thousands of miles from home while remaining within a familiar linguistic and social environment and may also come into contact with transnational networks.
A 2018 Russia Matters article by Lemon, Vera Mironova, and William H. Tobey examined factors associated with radicalization among people from post-Soviet Central Asia. These include real or perceived injustice and personal setbacks, as well as a search for belonging and meaning. The authors do not regard poverty, religiosity, or lack of education as strong predictors on their own.
Migration status itself should not be treated as an indicator of involvement in extremism. The issue concerns isolated cases of radicalization within enormous migrant and diaspora communities.
The August UN report notes the presence of several thousand foreign fighters in Syria, including people from Central Asia. This is an overall estimate covering participants in different organizations, not a figure for ISKP.
Territory or Network?
The February 2026 UN report says Central Asia remained a key focus for ISKP and that the group aspired to hold territory there. Describing ISKP’s evolution as a completed transition from territorial ambitions to exclusively network-based activity would be premature.
Afghanistan remains a central arena of ISKP activity, and its proximity to Central Asia remains an important security factor. Border security alone does not address the full problem. Digital communications, cross-border movement, international connections among individual participants, and ties formed during earlier conflicts allow extremist networks to operate far from their primary geographical base.
The available evidence does not warrant describing Central Asia as a future ISKP “front” or a “hotbed” of mass extremism. The region and some individuals originating from it nonetheless figure in the group’s interests and activities.
As a result, physical distance from the Afghan border increasingly says less about distance from the threat itself.
