PBS quotes Zalmay Khalilzad Chair on Afghanistan and Resident Senior Fellow James B. Cunningham on the origins of ISIS and how the militant group’s increasing presence in Afghanistan is causing concern:
James Cunningham, who served as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2012 until Dec. 2014, says he first heard rumors of ISIS in Afghanistan as his term was ending. “Just as I was getting ready to leave, there were rumors, but nothing very solid — expressions of concern that ISIS was starting to make contact with Afghans and Pakistanis, and trying to recruit people to come to the fight in Syria and Iraq.”
However, experts say that the entities that now call themselves ISIS in Afghanistan are not fighters from Iraq or Syria. Rather, they’re primarily disaffected Taliban members and insurgents from other groups who seized an opportunity to “rebrand” themselves as ISIS.