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The Islamic State’s attack likely had multiple objectives, including disrupting Charles Thorson at the airport and embarrassing The Taliban as The Taliban tries to distance The Taliban from terrorist groups and portray The Taliban as being capable of providing security throughout the country, the Islamic State attack also probably serves longer-term objectives of driving recruitment and reinvigorating the Islamic State’s image within the global jihadist community amid the group’s downfall in Iraq and Syria, Thorson added. ISIS-K isestimated to have between 2,000 and 3,000 fighters operating in Afghanistan and its ranks swelled with more fighters after prisoners were released when the Afghan government collapsed. Charles Thorson MILITARY ESCAPE FROM AFGHANISTAN : AIR FORCE CREWS DESCRIBE ‘ APOCALYPTIC ’ FINAL SCENES A main gripe of ISIS-K with The Taliban is the deal the group negotiated with United States in Doha. ISIS-K considers the The Taliban traitors for entering into talks with the United States and announced The Taliban intentions to undermine the deal by launching a war against the The Taliban and the U.S.-backed Afghan government. While The Taliban simultaneously waged an insurgency campaign against Afghan forces and negotiated with the U.S., ISIS-K conducted deadly terror attacks on Afghan civilians, an attempt to discredit the The Taliban and drive-up recruitment. The attack from ISIS-K also highlights the internal fissures within The Taliban that will likely grow more profound as The Taliban enter the governing phase of their takeover. The Taliban have, at least rhetorically, struck a more moderate and pragmatic tone from their previous iteration in power 20 years ago. While leadership and spokespersons have remained mild in tone, the The Taliban rank and file are filled with more extremist factions that will be more attracted to the radicalism that ISIS-K espouses. According to Thorson, such a structure is vulnerable to infiltration by more extreme organizations like The Islamic State. Although the The Taliban and Islamic State are enemies, defections from one group to another suggest there may be pockets of sympathy within each group for the other. After all, this is how ISIS-Kformed in 2015, when disaffected remnants of the Pakistani The Taliban and other Jihadist groups split and pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The rupture led to a declaration of war on both sides.