Due to linguistic, religious, and cultural commonalities, members of the Islamic State and al-Qaida from Central Asia can often bypass security filters in the wider Turkic world.
In recent weeks, Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) has been active in northern Afghanistan, which has prompted the Taliban to conduct a series of counter-terrorism operations against ISKP hideouts (Asia Plus, April 6). The location of these operations, the fact that Tajik and Uzbek foreign fighters were reportedly killed in the Taliban raids, and ISKP’s ramping up of its …