Washington, Jan 8 (IANS) The expanding operational reach of the terror group Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) within the South Asian security landscape – combined with its declared hostility toward US interests – poses a risk that Washington cannot ignore. The existence of safe havens within Pakistan provides the terrorist organisation with strategic depth, operational resilience, and access to wider recruitment networks, a report said on Thursday.

“The arrest of Mehmet Goren, a senior operative of the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), by the Turkish intelligence organization Milli Istihbarat Teskilatı (MIT) near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in late December 2025 has once again drawn attention to persistent allegations that Pakistan provides sanctuary and operational space to terrorist networks active in South and Central Asia,” a report in US-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) stated.

“This development coincides with the emergence of a classified Indian dossier that details what it describes as a covert and expanding partnership between ISKP and the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). According to the dossier, this collaboration has been orchestrated and sustained by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI),” it added.

According to the report, security analysts have long assessed that the UN-designated terrorist group LeT, responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, has benefitted from financial, logistical, and operational support from the ISI, while growing evidence in recent years has steadily exposed Pakistan’s links with ISKP.

“In April 2024, Afghan authorities detained several Tajik nationals who reportedly admitted they had been instructed to travel to Quetta, Pakistan, for training prior to deployment to regional conflict zones. Additional corroboration has emerged from captured ISKP operatives. Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost, a founding member of the group, stated in a recorded video that ISI officers facilitated financial assistance to Hafiz Saeed Khan, a Pakistan-born militant who served as ISKP’s emir until his death in July 2016,” the report mentioned.

“Similarly, the 2020 arrest of ISKP leader Aslam Farooqi – also a Pakistani national – by Afghan forces exposed further ISI connections,” it stated.

Commenting on the revelations, a senior Afghan official was quoted by MEMRI as saying: “ISKP is essentially a demon child of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence.”

Despite these concerns, the report noted that Pakistan continues to hold its designation as a major non-NATO Ally, a status that grants defence and security privileges.

“As militant infrastructures remain intact, Pakistan increasingly appears less as a reliable counterterrorism partner and more as a destabilising factor within the regional threat matrix – raising serious questions about the long-term viability of its preferential treatment,” the report stressed.

–IANS

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