As the Taliban reasserted control over Afghanistan in August 2021, the media wings of terrorist groups in the region entered a new era. Two names dominate this digital theatre: Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Islamic State Khorasan Province (IS-KP). While both have expanded their propaganda efforts since the Taliban’s return to power, a striking disparity has emerged; IS-KP is outpacing TTP not just in ideological ambition, but in the sophistication and reach of its media operations.
TTP’s media strategy has indeed grown more active in the post Taliban takeover period. The group revived its Urdu-language magazine ‘Mujallah Taliban’ and maintains a presence through encrypted communication platforms and limited Telegram channels. It produces videos featuring its leadership and battlefield activity, pushing out statements and content in Urdu and occasionally in English. But the focus remains largely local: attacks on Pakistani forces, grievances rooted in tribal identity, and criticism of Pakistan’s civil-military structure. Its tone is reactive, defensive, and often slow to adapt.
IS-KP, by contrast, is executing a highly dynamic and transnational propaganda campaign. Since 2022, the group has operated under the umbrella of Al-Azaim Foundation, its formal media arm. Through this outlet, IS-KP has flooded online platforms with multilingual content aimed not just at South Asians but at potential recruits across Europe, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia. Al-Azaim publishes in English, Urdu, Pashto, Arabic, Persian, Tajik, Uzbek, Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Indonesian, Russian, French, and German; a stunning breadth that reflects the group’s ambition to inspire a truly global audience.
This globalist orientation gives IS-KP a distinct edge. In place of the TTP’s static tribal nationalism, IS-KP frames itself as a pan-Islamist vanguard, positioning its message around issues like Palestine, Kashmir, the Rohingya crisis, and the Taliban’s perceived betrayal of ‘jihadist’ ideals. It has accused the Afghan Taliban of serving American and Pakistani interests, presenting itself as the ideological and military alternative.
Moreover, IS-KP has mastered the medium as well as the message. Its media output features high production quality, clear branding, QR-coded magazines, automated backup bots, and layered encryption techniques creating a resilient digital ecosystem that is difficult to shut down. It has not only survived platform purges but adapted to them. Its Al-Azaim Foundation operates a network of mirror channels, automatic reposting bots, and direct links that allow rapid reconstitution of propaganda channels when taken down. By late 2023, IS-KP was even using QR codes embedded in images to disseminate backup links; an innovation far beyond the TTP’s reach.
IS-KP’s focus on strategic language localisation also sets it apart. Its Voice of Khorasan magazine regularly appears in English, tailored for educated Muslim youth in South Asia and the West. Meanwhile, its translations into Hindi, Tamil, and Malayalam reflect a targeted campaign to radicalise Indian Muslims, particularly in Kerala and Karnataka; an effort linked to recent arrests in Germany and ongoing investigations into global IS-KP networks.
TTP, in contrast, continues to operate in a more traditional, Pakistan-centric information environment. While it has made attempts to counter IS-KP’s ideological criticism such as releasing videos clarifying its stance on Shariah or condemning IS-KP’s takfir (excommunication) practices; its outreach lacks strategic consistency. Its production remains limited to key commanders’ messages, battlefield footage, and occasional ideological pieces, mostly in Urdu. Despite occasional releases in Pashto and English, these are rare and often lack professional formatting, making them inaccessible to a wider audience.
IS-KP has also been proactive in ideological confrontation. Through Al-Azaim’s sub-platforms such as Az-Zawahiri Foundation and Halqa-e-Media, it has waged an aggressive war of narratives against the Taliban regime, portraying them as puppets of foreign intelligence. IS-KP has openly accused the Taliban of protecting apostates, hosting embassies, and implementing man-made laws, thereby weakening the credibility of rival terrorists narratives. These thematic attacks not only delegitimize the Taliban and TTP but also draw sympathisers from a broader Salafi-jihadist pool.
Importantly, the reach and resonance of IS-KP’s media strategy are no longer theoretical. Arrests in the EU, rising radicalisation in parts of India, and the group’s growing footprint on encrypted channels all point to a carefully calculated digital insurgency. Its content is designed not just to inform or agitate but to recruit, radicalise, and operationalize.
Meanwhile, TTP’s digital footprint, though dangerous, is parochial and reactive. Its strategy is unlikely to inspire the kind of global mobilisation that IS-KP now actively pursues. Where TTP uses encrypted platforms to share local attack footage, IS-KP employs those same tools to seed the next generation of lone wolves across continents.
This divergence carries serious implications. While Pakistan rightly remains concerned about the TTP’s insurgency, regional and global security planners must begin treating IS-KP’s media strategy as a standalone threat. It is not merely supporting terrorism; it is shaping it, globalising it, and scripting its ideological future.
In today’s information war, the most dangerous terrorist is not always the one holding the gun but the one holding the camera, the script, and the Telegram bot. IS-KP knows this. TTP, so far, does not. And that is what makes IS-KP the more dangerous of the two.
