ISIS-K blasts Taliban for supporting China on Uyghur repression
The ISIS-K said the Taliban considers the “eradication of the Uyghur Muslims” as an internal matter of China and the “mass murders committed" by the Russian, Iranian regime and its proxies are also considered as something outside their jurisdiction.
Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan, ISIS-Khorasan, blasted the Taliban for maintaining its close links with China despite the “eradication of the Uyghur Muslims” in Xinjiang. In a propaganda magazine titled ‘Voice of Khurasan’, ISIS-K also shared a picture of members of the Taliban praying alongside the ISI chief while highlighting that numerous training camps and religious schools of the Taliban are based in Pakistan.

The terrorist organisation has objected to the numerous meetings and visits by the Taliban to China, Iran and Russia, calling them the “biggest enemies of Islam.”
“While the Taliban considers the eradication of the Uyghur Muslims as an internal matter of China, the mass murders committed by the Russian, Iran regime and its proxies…are also considered as something outside their jurisdiction,” it said.
The group has not endorsed the Taliban’s attempt at international recognition, saying they seek to have “political and international recognition for their own thirsty needs.” ISIS-K also questioned the Taliban’s exclusivist policies, saying the “extreme nationalist and tribalism” of the group has nothing to do with the “Islamic System”.
“The issue of extreme nationalism and tribalism, which has nothing to do with the Islamic System is ever present within the group. Love and hate depend on the tribe rather than being a Muslim,” it said.
The Taliban regained control of Afghanistan in August last year and promised to form an inclusive government, as demanded by the international community, which has hardly been fulfilled. The Sunni Pashtun group expanded its cabinet in September to showcase its non-existent inclusivity as it gave some insignificant portfolios to members of ethnic minority communities such as Hazaras and Uzbeks.
“Even today large infighting is present within the group as strong hatred is present between Pashtuns, Uzbeks, Turkmen,” the ISIS-K noted in its magazine.
ISIS-K, a sworn enemy of the Taliban, claims to be the true flag-bearer of jihad and has rejected the deal between the Taliban and the US signed in Doha in February 2020. Notorious for some of the deadliest terror attacks in Afghanistan in recent times, the ISIS-K called on the ‘mujahideen’ to join the fight, saying the “fighting has just begun”.
“The army of Allah is on the rise again, to rule the lands of Allah with his law, and by the will of Allah we are returning stronger than ever, harsher on the people of kufr. The words of our noble leaders would forever haunt you. The fighting has just begun,” it said.
ABOUT THE AUTHORShishir GuptaShishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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