How IS-K group linked to Taylor Swift terror plot is increasing in strength and influence
The international influence of Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K), a branch of the Islamic State, has been on the rise.
The group has been linked to numerous attacks and planned attacks in 2024. The highest profile plots include a deadly attack on a concert hall in Moscow, foiled plans to disrupt three Taylor Swift concerts in Austria, and twin bombings in Iran.
Sky News has analysed new data from the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) that shows a sharp rise in propaganda produced by the group, which is being disseminated in more languages than ever.
As the amount of propaganda has increased, reaching audiences far beyond Afghanistan‘s borders, so has the number of international attacks and planned attacks, posing a growing threat to Western security.
German officials recently said they have foiled planned IS-K attacks, as authorities in the country remain on high alert. In July, French officials said they uncovered several terrorist plots targeting the 2024 Paris Olympics. In the weeks leading up to the Games, IS-K’s propaganda channels had published several posters inciting supporters to attack various locations in Paris during the event.
An IS-K poster inciting violence at the Paris Olympics
Experts expect this trend of incitement to continue gaining traction and the UN has warned of IS-K’s heightened threat levels across Europe.
“The group is considered the greatest external terrorist threat to the continent,” Vladimir Voronkov, the under-secretary-general for the UN’s Office of Counter-Terrorism, said in a briefing in August.
The Afghan wing of Islamic State (IS), commonly known as IS-K, ISIS-K or ISKP, has emerged as the terrorist organisation’s most globally-minded affiliate.
CIR has also been observing a gradual diversification of IS-K’s media and propaganda, according to Ben den Braber, head of research for Afghan Witness, the team behind the new data.
“Recently, especially since the uptick in propaganda, we’ve seen a bigger focus on Central Asia and on Europe,” he said.
In addition to targeting its core audiences in South and Central Asia, specifically Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, the group has been gradually disseminating media in an increasing number of languages.
One recent poster produced by the group’s in-house media outlet announced the broadcast of their content in Urdu, adding to the array of languages it already publishes including Pashto, Persian, Tajik, Uzbek, Russian, Turkish, Azerbaijani, English and Arabic.
Poster shared by one of IS-K’s English-language propaganda outlets
Global ambitions
IS-K first emerged in 2015, when their primary focus was to gain territory in Afghanistan to help establish a caliphate, or a territory controlled by a single IS ruler.
The K in its name refers to Khorasan, a province in Afghanistan that historically encompasses parts of modern-day Iran, Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
After US troops pulled out of Afghanistan in 2021 and the Taliban regained power, the number of attacks and influence by IS-K inside the country has been dwindling, according to data gathered by CIR’s Afghan Witness team.
The group has increased its strength since the US withdrawal and ramped up international operations, despite the Taliban’s campaign to crackdown on IS-K in Afghanistan.
“The threat posed by [IS-K] has grown with significant terrorist attacks outside of Afghanistan, notably in Moscow on 22 March, and with increased threat levels in Europe and other areas,” the UN Security Council recently wrote in a report.
The data backs this up. There’s been a significant uptick in attacks and arrests of IS-K-linked individuals outside Afghanistan since 2022.
“The really interesting piece of this is not that the Taliban’s been able to limit attacks in Afghanistan,” said Colin Clarke, director of research at the Soufan Group, a New York-based security and intelligence firm.
“It’s been the adaptability of IS,” he added. “They made that transition seamlessly. And they’ve stuck with it.”
There was a noticeable shift in IS-K’s propaganda narratives after the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan, said Dr Amira Jadoon, assistant professor of political science at Clemson University and the author of a forthcoming book about IS-K.
“There’s still the vilification of the Taliban. But we see a shift towards talking about different issues and grievances of different communities,” she said.
Taylor Swift performs on stage in Edinburgh during her Eras Tour. Pic: PA
Aside from focusing their content on successful attacks and capitalising on local issues in key countries like Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to rally supporters, the group publishes propaganda that touches on wider global conflicts.
This is seen by scholars as a way for IS-K to capitalise on the feeling of hostility in the Muslim world, and to take advantage of anti-Western sentiment, exacerbated by the war in Gaza.
“The goal became here to show how [they] are such a broad platform that anyone can join,” said Dr Jadoon.
Shift in strategy
In August, a disrupted plan to attack three Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna was the latest high-profile international plot linked to IS-K. Austrian authorities say the main suspect had pledged allegiance to the group and had been consuming and sharing propaganda online.
The suspects in the foiled Vienna attacks intended to kill “tens of thousands” of people, according to the US’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
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Swift terror suspect image released
Instances like this and the thwarted attacks in Paris during the Olympics, for example, make up a fraction of the planned attacks in Europe this year, which experts estimate to have been at least half a dozen to date.
Crocus City Hall following an attack on the concert venue outside Moscow. Pic: Reuters
The group is also responsible for several successful plots this year.
In March, gunmen attacked and set fire to Crocus City Hall, a concert venue in Moscow. The incident left nearly 140 people dead. Four men of Tajik origin were arrested.
While IS-K didn’t directly claim responsibility, they posted a video in one of their channels from one of the attackers’ phones while they conducted the rampage, and have implied in other posts that they were the ones behind the attack.
The violence in Moscow was also preceded by a string of anti-Russian messages on IS-K channels online.
“The propaganda is somewhat of a foreshadowing of the area of interest for the organisation,” said Mr den Braber of CIR.
After the attack, the group published a flyer with text that read “After Moscow, Who is the Next?”, along with images and the names of various large European cities.
A propaganda poster shared on IS-K online channels in April after the Moscow attack
At this stage, IS and its Afghan branch are trying to gain prominence on the international stage by generating media attention to recruit supporters and, crucially, raise money, according to experts.
In January, the group was linked to double suicide bombings at a memorial service in Kerman, Iran, which killed over 100 people, and a gun attack at a church in Istanbul.
“What they’re after is the media exposure. Why? Because another thing that’s changed in recent years is that IS lost its big donors,” said Dr Antonio Giustozzi, senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute.
Members of his research team are part of several IS-K Telegram channels and WhatsApp groups, and were told that the Iran attack helped IS-K raise quite a lot of money from donors, often sent using crypto.
An IS-K Telegram post from April calling for fundraising intimates the group was behind the Moscow, Iran and Istanbul attacks. Pic: Lucas Webber/X
“Their goal is to kill large numbers of civilians to garner attention,” said Mr Clarke, who runs research at The Soufan Centre.
“These kinds of terror plots are really intended to generate momentum for the group to make it a household name once again, and with that comes recruitment and donations.
“Taylor Swift’s arguably the most recognisable and famous pop star in the world. If they were successful in attacking that concert, similar to the way the Ariana Grande Manchester bombing took place, ISIS would have enjoyed weeks, if not months of unfettered propaganda, which helps buoy the group and give them momentum.”
Even foiled plots like the planned attacks on the Swift concerts in Austria, he said, are a win.
Read more:
What is IS-K and why would it target Russia?
UK should ‘absolutely’ be concerned about IS-K after Moscow attack
The Happel stadium after Taylor Swift’s three concerts in Vienna in August were cancelled. Pic: Reuters
Hard to track
As well as distributing content through their own media, content is shared widely on social media platforms like Meta, X and encrypted messaging apps like Telegram.
Experts say that IS-K encourages its supporters around the world to create their own propaganda that aligns with its position.
IS-K appears to be inciting attacks from afar. A lot of propaganda calls on self-radicalised supporters through online channels to carry out unsophisticated plots against civilians, rather than planning directed attacks, which are defined by sending highly trained individuals to hit specific locations.
“Self-radicalisation is one of the key threats with all this propaganda that they put out there,” said Dr Jadoon, who’s authoring a book about IS-K.
‘Incited’ or inspired attacks, Jadoon says, can be very hard to track. “If someone is just absorbing content and not really engaging in any way, then it makes it harder to detect,” she added.
“With directed attacks, there are more opportunities for law-enforcement to detect unusual activity on groups. There’s more chance there will be a paper trail.”
Another obstacle in tracking IS-K content and potential plots is the fact that social media platforms have strict censorship rules.
Mr den Braber says content moderation is the biggest difficulty for his team in keeping on top of different communication channels, adding that old IS-K chat rooms are taken down and new ones pop up every day.
Future plots
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Counter-terrorism experts say Western intelligence has a good penetration of these online networks and is disrupting them frequently and early.
But some warn that because agencies in the West are overburdened, something could slip through the cracks.
“There’s so much going on in the world so there are gaps in intelligence and law enforcement monitoring,” said Lucas Webber, senior threat intelligence analyst at Tech Against Terrorism, a UN initiative that tracks terrorist activities online.
“It’s going to be difficult to prevent one or more attacks slipping through at this point.”
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling, we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
Israel and Hamas said ceasefire talks have resumed in Qatar – even as Israeli forces ramped up a bombing campaign and mobilised for a massive new ground assault.
Earlier, the Israeli military said it had been “conducting extensive strikes and mobilising troops” as part of preparations to expand operations in Gaza.
Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz said Hamas had “refused to discuss negotiations without a cessation of the war”, but after the airstrikes and the mobilisation of forces the militant group’s representatives “have agreed to sit in a room and seriously discuss the deal”.
“Israel emphasises that if the talks do not progress, the [military] operation will continue,” he added.
A Hamas source told Sky News that ceasefire talks began in Doha on Saturday morning.
Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Jabalia. Pic: Reuters
Tents were targeted in an airstrike on Saturday at al Aqsa Hospital in Deir al Balah in central Gaza. Pic: AP
Hamas official Taher al-Nono told Reuters news agency that the two sides were involved in discussions without “pre-conditions”.
He added Hamas was “keen to exert all the effort needed” to help mediators make the negotiations a success.
More than 150 people have been killed in Israeli strikes in the last 24 hours, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.
This week has been one of the deadliest phases of bombardment since a truce collapsed in March and marked a significant escalation in Israel’s offensive.
The Israeli military’s preparations to expand operations in Gaza have included the build-up of tanks and troops along the border.
It is part of “Operation Gideon Chariot”, which Israel says is aimed at defeating Hamas and getting its hostages back.
Israeli tanks near the Israel-Gaza border on Saturday. Pic: Reuters
An Israeli tank being relocated to a position near the Gaza border on Friday. Pic: AP
An Israeli defence official said earlier this month that the operation would not be launched before Donald Trump concluded his visit to the Middle East.
The US president ended his trip on Friday, with no apparent progress towards a new peace deal.
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Forensic look at Israel’s escalation
Meanwhile, on Saturday, leaders at the annual summit of the Arab League in Baghdad said they were trying to reach a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
They also promised to contribute to the reconstruction of the territory once the war stops.
The meeting comes two months after Israel ended a ceasefire reached with the Hamas militant group.
A man carrying the body of a child killed in Israeli airstrikes on Friday in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
Parts of northern Gaza have been completely destroyed in the bombing campaign. Pic: Reuters
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on 5 May that Israel was planning an expanded, intensive offensive against Hamas as his security cabinet approved plans that could involve seizing Gaza and controlling aid.
This week, Israel said it had bombed the European Hospital because it was home to an underground Hamas base, but Sky News analysis has cast doubt on its evidence.
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Israel’s goal is the elimination of Hamas, which attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing around 1,200 people and seizing about 250 hostages.
Its military response has killed more than 53,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
World
The chilling moment in Russia-Ukraine peace talks – as Putin makes mockery of Trump’s efforts to end war
Vladimir Putin made a mockery this week of Donald Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
Far from punishing him for it, the US president went out of his way to dodge calls to get tough with the Russian leader.
Follow latest updates on Ukraine war
On Sunday, President Trump called on leaders of both Russia and Ukraine to meet.
He posted: “President Putin of Russia wants to meet on Thursday, in Turkey, to negotiate a possible end to the BLOODBATH. Ukraine should agree to this, IMMEDIATELY.”
That post let the Russian leader off the hook. Only the day before, Putin had been ordered by Ukraine’s allies, including America, to agree to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire.
Pic: AP
The Russian president had swerved that demand, suggesting talks instead.
“If the ceasefire is not respected, the US and its partners will impose further sanctions,” Trump posted before swivelling and backing Putin’s proposals for talks instead.
Undeterred, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accepted the call.
Putin though refused to go, sending officials instead.
And yet there was no reprimand from the US president. Instead, he chose to undermine the talks he had himself called for.
“Look, nothing is going to happen until Putin and I get together,” he told reporters on Air Force One. So much for that then.
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What happened at Ukraine talks?
It is what happened in those talks though that should give the US president the greatest pause for thought about Putin’s intentions – as it does in Kyiv.
The message they brought was blunt and belligerent, threatening eternal war.
“We don’t want war, but we’re ready to fight for a year, two, three – however long it takes,” lead Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky is reported to have said. “We fought Sweden for 21 years. How long are you ready to fight?”
Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky. Pic: AP
Far from offering a compromise, they are reported to have demanded the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the four regions they have partially seized by force and the capitulation of another two, just for good measure.
And there was a chilling moment when the Russians are reported to have threatened their interlocutors like gangsters.
“Maybe some of those sitting here at this table will lose more of their loved ones,” Mednisky said. Russia is prepared to fight forever.
For Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister, that was personal.
Max, his 23-year-old nephew, lost his life fighting the Russians in 2022 not long after their illegal and unprovoked invasion began.
Read more from Sky News:
Nine killed in attack on Ukrainian bus
First direct Russia-Ukraine talks since 2022
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Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister. Pic: AP
At the end of this week, Putin appears scornful of Western efforts to end this war through a ceasefire and negotiations and Trump seems happy to let him get away with it.
Even Fox News, normally slavishly subservient to Trump, is wondering what gives.
Its anchor Bret Baier is no Jeremy Paxman, but in an interview last night asked Donald Trump 10 times if he might finally now put pressure on Putin.
The US president ducked and dived, talking about the money he had made in his Gulf tour, Zelenskyy’s shortcomings, Biden, and Iran instead. But he did not give a straight answer to the question.
With performances like that, Putin has nothing to worry about. Trump’s position though seems increasingly untenable.
Ukraine’s European allies though should be alarmed. They threatened Russia with sanctions and retaliation last weekend if he rejected a ceasefire. He now has.
With or without America, will they be good to their word?
A wave of deadly strikes in northern Gaza has marked a significant escalation in Israel’s offensive.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said on Friday evening it was “conducting extensive strikes and mobilising troops to achieve operational control in the areas of Gaza”.
Earlier, it said it had struck “over 150 terror targets” across the Gaza Strip in the previous 24 hours – an average of one airstrike every 10 minutes.
Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed more than 250 people since Thursday morning, the Hamas-run health ministry in the region said on Friday.
Nurse and his family killed in strike
The impact of this new bombardment is cataclysmic, as this video of an Israeli airstrike in Jabalia, northern Gaza, verified by Sky News, shows.
Other videos show huge smoke clouds rising from airstrikes on residential neighbourhoods surrounding the city’s Indonesian Hospital.
The hospital’s director, Dr Marwan al Sultan, told Sky News: “There is a shortage of everything except death.”
Among those killed in Jabalia on Friday was 42-year old Yahya Shehab, a nurse for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF).
He was killed alongside his wife Tamara, 37, and their five children: Sarah, 18, Anas, 16, Maryam, 14, Aya, 12 and Abdul, 11.
Nurse Yahya Shehab, 42, was killed alongside his wife and five young children. Pic: PCRF
He is survived by his niece Huda, 27, a civil engineer, who lives nearby with her husband Ahmad Ngat, 31, and their two young sons, Mohammed, seven, and Yusuf, four.
Ahmad remembers Yahya as kind and generous, and that he would use his skills as a nurse to treat Mohammed and Yusuf whenever they were sick.
“His kids were great too,” Ahmad says. “May God have mercy on them.”
Operation Gideon Chariot
An Israeli official said Friday’s strikes were preparatory actions in the lead-up to a larger operation.
Earlier this month, Israel’s security cabinet approved “Operation Gideon Chariot” – a plan to “capture” all of Gaza and force its entire population to move to a small enclave in the southern Gaza Strip.
At the time, a defence official said the operation would go ahead if no hostage deal was reached by the end of US President Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East. That visit ended on Friday 16 May.
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Hamas had proposed releasing all hostages in exchange for a permanent end to the war. Last month, Hamas turned down Israel’s offer of a temporary ceasefire in exchange for the militant group laying down its weapons and releasing half the living hostages.
Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who sits in the security cabinet, said of Operation Gideon Chariot that Gaza would be “entirely destroyed”, and that its population will “leave in great numbers to third countries”.
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Fresh airstrikes hit Gaza
Ahmad says he is ready to leave Gaza with his family at the earliest opportunity.
“We want to live our lives,” he says.
Ahmad (C) with his wife Huda (R) and their son Mohammed (L). Pic: Ahmad Ngat
His wife Huda grieving the loss of her uncle Yahya, is seven months pregnant. The family are constantly struggling to find enough food for her and the children, he says.
“Unfortunately, she suffers greatly,” Ahmad says. “She developed gestational diabetes during this pregnancy.”
Israel has prevented the entry of all food, fuel and water since 2 March. On Monday, a UN-backed report warned that one in five people in Gaza were facing starvation.
Satellite imagery may show new aid hubs
Under new proposals backed by the US, Israel now intends to control the distribution of aid via private military contractors.
The proposals, set to start operating by the end of May, would see aid distributed from militarised compounds in four locations around the Gaza Strip.
Satellite imagery from recent weeks shows Israel has constructed four compounds which could be used for aid distribution.
Newly constructed compounds in Gaza, May 2025. Pics: Planet Labs PBC
Construction began in April and was completed by early May.
Three of these are clustered together in the southwest corner of the Gaza Strip, with one in the central Netzarim corridor.
None are located in northern Gaza, where Ahmad and Huda’s family live.
The UN has called this a “deliberate attempt to weaponise” aid distribution and has refused to participate.
The planned aid distribution system is being coordinated by a new non-profit, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which was set up in February in Switzerland.
Its board includes a former head of World Central Kitchen, as well as people with close ties to the US military and private military contractors.
Proposals drawn up by the GHF say the four planned aid distribution sites could feed around 1.2 million people, approximately 60% of Gaza’s population.
The GHF later requested that Israel establish additional distribution points.
Speaking to the UN Security Council on Tuesday, UN Relief chief Tom Fletcher said the plan “makes starvation a bargaining chip”.
“It is cynical sideshow. A deliberate distraction. A fig leaf for further violence and displacement,” he said.
Read more:
Up to a million Palestinians could be ‘permanently relocated’
Trump risks becoming losing interest in Gaza – analysis
Large areas of Gaza have already been razed in recent weeks, including vast tracts of the southern city of Rafah, where many had fled during the war’s early stages.
Sky News analysis of satellite imagery shows approximately two-thirds of Rafah’s built-up area (66%) has been reduced entirely to rubble, with buildings across much of the rest of the city showing signs of severe damage.
On Thursday, Human Rights Watch executive director Federico Borello said the UK and US have a duty, under the Genocide Convention, to “stop Israeli authorities from starving civilians in Gaza”.
He said: “Hearing Israeli officials flaunt plans to squeeze Gaza’s two million people into an even tinier area while making the rest of the land uninhabitable should be treated like a five-alarm fire in London, Brussels, Paris, and Washington.”
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said on Friday that Israel’s new offensive is intended to secure the release of its hostages. “Our objective is to get them home and get Hamas to relinquish power,” he said.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
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