Pakistan Mosque Blast: ISIS Shadow In The Subcontinent Is Alarming
Pakistan faces renewed security alarm as ISIS intensifies its shadow in the subcontinent, exploiting instability, mosque bombings and regional security vacuums.
After almost five years, ISIS has carried out a high-intensity terror attack in the subcontinent, targeting a Shia mosque in Pakistan, killing more than 30 people and injuring around 170. The last such major attacks include the 2023 Khar bombings, the deadly Peshawar mosque bombing in 2022 that killed more than 60 people, and the Abbey Gate bombing during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, which claimed over 170 lives. After a gap of two years, ISIS-K has again executed a high-intensity suicide bombing, this time during the visit of the President of Uzbekistan to Pakistan. While this may appear to be an episodic act of terror, dismissing it as such would be unwise. A closer examination of the Khorasan branch’s efforts to establish a foothold in the South Asian subcontinent raises serious concerns for regional security.
Support Independent Journalism. Public interest stories that affect ordinary citizens — especially those without power or voice — requires time, resources, and independence. Your support — even a modest contribution — allows us to uncover stories that would otherwise remain hidden. Support The Probe by contributing to projects that resonate with you (Click Here), or Become a Member of The Probe to stand with us (Click Here). |
The Khorasani Struggle
After the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, ISIS-K found a limited opening to expand its influence in the subcontinent. This phase began with the Kabul school bombings months before the withdrawal and culminated in the Abbey Gate bombing in August 2021. A closer analysis of ISIS-K’s activities in 2021 shows that the Khorasan branch sharply escalated attacks in Afghanistan and signalled an alarming resurgence in South Asia’s immediate neighbourhood, carrying out 334 attacks—up from 83 in 2020—including five suicide bombings in Afghanistan alone.
However, by 2022–2023, ISIS-K was significantly weakened by sustained Taliban retaliation and counter-offensive operations, which resulted in the killing of key ISIS-K leaders in Afghanistan. In early 2023, the Taliban killed Qari Fateh, ISIS-K’s military chief, and Abu Saad Muhammad Khurasani, a senior ideologue and interim leader.
As the Taliban intensified counterinsurgency operations, the Khorasanis shifted to a more clandestine mode of operation, building deep and resilient cells to sustain low-intensity attacks while staying below the radar. Even this strategy gradually collapsed, as the Taliban’s broad crackdown penetrated ISIS-K’s networks and led to sustained raids in Khorasan strongholds such as Nangarhar and Kunar, as well as in a few urban areas where the group was operating in a fragmented manner. As a result, the current pattern of attacks in Afghanistan remains low-intensity, largely confined to targeted killings of ideological and political figures.
The Pakistan Shift
From 2022 onwards, the focus of ISIS-K’s operations shifted from Kabul to Islamabad. The Khorasanis initially carried out low-intensity attacks in Pakistan and, within months, escalated their campaign to a peak with the Peshawar mosque bombing, which killed more than 60 people and injured over 100. Overall, 2022 witnessed a high frequency of ISIS-K–linked internal attacks in Pakistan.
By the end of 2022, ISIS-K’s terror activities began to decline, with the next major strike occurring almost a year later. In this attack, the Khorasanis carried out a suicide bombing in the Khar district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during a rally of the Islamist political party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F), killing more than 60 people and injuring over 200. In 2024, the Khorasanis began expanding their operations externally into Central Asia while maintaining low-intensity, targeted killings in Pakistan. This pattern suggests that the group is primarily focused on exploiting weakened security environments, identifying moments of distraction to strike, and signalling a renewed or growing presence.
The Khorasani Pattern
ISIS-K has, from time to time, sought to demonstrate its presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan by sustaining its cadre through clandestine recruitment and targeted killings. To amplify its impact, the group looks for opportune moments to deliver high-casualty attacks that generate shock value, a hallmark of ISIS-style violence. The Khorasanis have thus adopted a gap-driven strategy, prioritising lethality over frequency to reassert their power and relevance in the region.
During 2022 and 2023, ISIS-K (ISKP) attacks in Pakistan not only increased but also became significantly more lethal, capitalising on a weakened security environment caused by the resurgence of Baloch militancy and the breakdown of the ceasefire agreement with the TTP in 2022. Similarly, in 2023, as TTP and BLA attacks intensified, the TTP carried out five attacks and bombing incidents in July 2023 alone. In the same month, ISIS-K executed the Khar bombings, exploiting a strained security environment and the distraction of Pakistan’s security establishment.
Similarly, in 2025, as the Baloch Liberation Army intensified its operations in Pakistan—beginning with the Jafar Express train hijacking in March—and the TTP stepped up its attacks, the year marked a major operational peak for the TTP. According to a report, TTP operations crossed over 300 per month, a sharp increase from the average of 100–200 monthly operations recorded in 2024. In the same year, the Darul Uloom mosque bombing in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa took place, killing Hamid Ul Haq Haqqani, a prominent Pakistani cleric and politician known for his support of the Taliban. The suicide attack was suspected to have been carried out by the Khorasanis as an attempt to challenge the Taliban’s legitimacy and authority by targeting one of their key supporters in Pakistan. Even during this period, the Khorasanis can be seen to have effectively exploited a weakening security environment in Pakistan and reasserted their power and relevance.
The core objective of the Khorasanis in the contested Af-Pak border region is to sustain the strength and capability to strike in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, challenge the Taliban regime, and destabilise Islamabad to establish a durable foothold. This strategy is aimed at building organisational capacity for the long-term overthrow of the Taliban while maintaining a transnational strike capability that extends beyond South Asia into Central and Southeast Asia.
The Islamabad Mosque Bombing
The recent Islamabad mosque bombing, carried out by ISIS-K, represents another instance of the group exploiting security vacuums in Pakistan. At the time, the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) had launched Operation Herof 2.0 on 31 January, which continued until 8 February. The operation reportedly targeted 12 cities across Pakistan and is said to have killed more than 100 Pakistani security personnel.
Just two days before the BLA officially concluded its operation, the Khorasanis carried out a suicide bombing at a Shia mosque in Islamabad, killing more than 30 people and injuring around 170. However, this attack carried an additional signalling purpose. In January 2026, the United States resumed air strikes against ISIS strongholds in Syria and Africa, renewing its broader offensive against the group.
ISIS in Africa, which had rapidly resurged—particularly in the Sahel region—suffered significant damage and losses due to air strikes. This setback pushed the group into a renewed search for opportunities to demonstrate its resolve and reassert its power. It appears to have identified such a window in Islamabad, following a suicide bombing at a Chinese restaurant in Kabul that targeted Afghan and Chinese citizens, carried out nearly a week after the US conducted air strikes in Syria. While the attack on the Chinese restaurant was aimed at undermining the Taliban’s international outreach and its growing closeness with China, it also conveyed a broader message: that despite sustained air strikes, ISIS retains the capacity to strike and project strength in select regions.
Pakistan’s Failed Gamble and Threat
According to some reports, Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI, entered into a clandestine understanding with ISIS in 2017, under which the group would refrain from attacking Pakistan and limit its activities to Afghanistan. However, ISKP later carried out a suicide bombing at a Baloch Awami Party (BAP) political rally in Mustang, Balochistan. While ISKP did not directly target Pakistani establishments until 2020, it has been argued that through covert engagements with ISKP, Pakistan sought to cultivate the group as a proxy against the Taliban and Baloch insurgents.
Allowing—or tolerating—ISKP’s activities in Afghanistan served Pakistan’s dual strategic objectives: first, enabling proxy pressure against the TTP and the BLA; and second, accruing diplomatic leverage through extradition and intelligence-sharing on ISKP operatives, such as the March 2025 arrest and extradition of ISKP commander Mohammad Sharifullah to the United States.
However, this clandestine, dual-benefit engagement with ISKP has generated severe blowback for Pakistan’s security establishment and increasingly appears to be a failed gamble. Even the recent attempt to broker an alliance between Lashkar and ISKP—reportedly aimed at moderating and influencing ISKP—has not materialised as intended. There appear to be two key reasons behind ISKP’s subsequent reversal.
First, survival and reassertion outweigh regional or tactical commitments. ISKP is currently fighting for survival and to reclaim influence, which remain the group’s core objectives; as a result, it cannot subordinate its primary agenda to short-term tactical arrangements.
Second, ISKP’s rigid ideological framework is fundamentally at odds with Lashkar. Sections within ISKP view the Khorasan project as part of a broader ambition to establish a regional Islamic caliphate across South Asia, requiring a far more uncompromising approach. The recent killing of senior Lashkar commander Najibullah by ISKP, along with the Islamabad mosque bombing, is widely interpreted as evidence of internal betrayal and the collapse of the purported Lashkar–ISKP nexus.
The threat from ISKP is real, and any resurgence in Pakistan would pose risks to the wider region, including India, as the group is actively seeking opportunities to reassert itself beyond its traditional areas of operation. The threat is further complicated by the possibility that Pakistan may attempt to clandestinely renegotiate with ISKP and redirect its activities towards Kashmir by facilitating operations against India. While individual attacks may appear episodic, India must exercise sustained vigilance in assessing ISKP’s footprint, as Pakistan’s internal security instability could create openings for cross-border terrorist movements, leading to the emergence of new and potentially more hardened terror modules targeting India.
Support Independent Journalism. Public interest stories that affect ordinary citizens — especially those without power or voice — requires time, resources, and independence. Your support — even a modest contribution — allows us to uncover stories that would otherwise remain hidden. Support The Probe by contributing to projects that resonate with you (Click Here), or Become a Member of The Probe to stand with us (Click Here). |
