The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is holding its 10th regional anti-terrorism conference in Tashkent. The conference is being held on September 4 and 5.
At the conference’s plenary session, Lieutenant General Abdusalam Azizov, the head of Uzbekistan’s State Security Service, emphasized that the member countries of the SCO must work together to fight against international terrorism, extremism, and radicalism.
“The Afghan government is fighting international terrorism based on its capabilities and resources, and the Afghan special service is leading the fight against the Islamic State and achieving results. We must fight together against the enemy,” Azizov said.
Regarding the branch of Islamic State known as Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), which has claimed responsibility for several fatal attacks in SCO member countries, including the attack on the Crocus City concert hall outside Moscow earlier this year, Azizov said: “It is important to help Afghanistan in the fight against ISKP, because the weakening of countermeasures will lead to the strengthening of this group, which, in turn, poses a threat to the security of the region.”
ISKP was formed in 2014 as a collective of defectors from groups including al-Qaeda, Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP), and former Taliban fighters from Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is estimated that ISKP has between 4,000 and 6,000 members. Since the Taliban killed its leader Sanaullah Ghafari in 2023, it is unclear who runs the group.
