The UN has sanctioned ISIS South Asia Branch, a terrorist group formed in 2015 by a Pakistani national, for its links with al Qaeda and involvement in several deadly attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan that killed more than 150 people.

The UN Security Council’s 1267 al Qaida Sanctions Committee on May 14 sanctioned Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant - Khorasan (ISIL-K), which is also known as ISIS South Asia Branch, ISIL Khorasan, Islamic State’s Khorasan Province and South Asian Chapter of ISIL.

The listing comes two weeks after the Sanctions Committee designated Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar as “global terrorist” on May 1, capping a decade-long effort by India and its allies to sanction the mastermind of several attacks in India, including the 2001 Parliament attack and the February 14 Pulwama terror attack which killed 40 CRPF soldiers.

The group is now subject to assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo.

When was the ISIL-K formed?

ISIL Khorasan announced its formation in an online video on January 10, 2015. The group was led by a former Tehrik-e-Taliban commander and was established by former Taliban faction commanders who swore an oath of allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. On January 26, 2015, ISIL spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani announced the terror group’s expansion into the area historically known as Khorasan.

ISIL-K has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Sanctions Committee said the group was listed as being associated with ISIS or al Qaeda for “participating in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing or perpetrating” acts or activities by supplying, selling or transferring arms and related material. It said the group engaged in “other acts or activities indicating association with al Qaeda, ISIS or any cell, affiliate, splinter group of al Qaeda in Iraq”.

Who is the chief of ISIL-K?

According to leading Washington-based think tank Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), in 2014, Pakistani national Hafiz Saeed Khan was chosen to rule ISIL-K province as its first “emir”. The senior TTP commander “brought along other prominent TTP members and many district chiefs when he pledged allegiance to al-Baghdadi in October 2014”, the CSIS noted on its website.

The website said the group’s “early membership included a contingent of Pakistani militants who emerged in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province around 2010, just across the border from the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan”. It also said many of these militants were “estranged members” of TTP and Lashkar-e-Islam, who had fled Pakistan to escape from the security forces.

According to Combatting Terrorism Center, some members of Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the Haqqani Network and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan had also “defected” to ISIS-K.

When was the Sanctions Committee formed?

The al Qaeda Sanctions Committee was established in 1999, pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 1267. Initially dealing with both al Qaeda and the Taliban, hence previously known as the al Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee, it was split in 2011. The committee was henceforth known as the al Qaeda Sanctions Committee, mandated to oversee implementation of the measures against individuals and entities associated with al Qaeda.

In 2015, the Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2253 and decided to expand the listing criteria to include individuals and entities supporting ISIL.