Four Years of Voice of Khurasan: Propaganda Trends & Practitioner Lessons

In 2022, Islamic State’s Khurasan Province (ISKP) launched the first issue of its English-language Voice of Khurasan magazine. Four years and forty-six issues later, the group has transformed from a brutal localised insurgency to a globally networked threat linked to directed and inspired attacks abroad that have killed hundreds and thwarted plots that could have killed hundreds more. At the heart of this transformation has been ISKP’s Al-Azaim Media Foundation, arguably the most sophisticated and active multilingual propaganda outfit of any Islamic State affiliate. Since January 2022, the Al-Azaim Media Foundation’s Voice of Khurasan has been the exemplar of a new generation of jihadi English-language propaganda. Analysing the narrative, thematic, and motivational trendlines in the evolution of Voice of Khurasan reveals an organisation with deep appreciation for the value of propaganda and the need to adapt quickly to both local and international developments. At this crucial juncture in both regional and global order, it is as important as ever to understand how ISKP’s English-language publication helped shepherd the group from being perceived by many in the West as a constrained, localised problem for the Taliban to a top transnational counter-terrorism concern. There are also important lessons for scholars and practitioners alike. 

Year One, 2022: Khurasan to the World    

The primary focus of Voice of Khurasan’s (VOK) first year of publication was to bring the attention of the English-speaking world to Afghanistan, and particularly to ISKP’s struggle against the Taliban. The magazine launched on the tail end of an 18-month resurgence campaign, highlighted by the 2021 Abbey Gate bombing and ISKP’s subsequent guerrilla campaign against the Taliban in the autumn of 2021. Overall, ISKP projects as a reinvigorated organisation with the momentum to sustain an expanding conflict with the Taliban. Carrying into 2022, expanded multilingual propaganda campaigns – with VOK English as the shiny new exemplar – are reflected in a full range of external operations, from transnational expeditionary operations in Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Iran to western countries raising alarms about foreign operations (inspired and coordinated), financing, and attempted travel.   

Woven through the nineteen issues released in 2022 and the 27 that have followed is a constant core narrative that acts as the foundation for VOK’s messaging architecture. That core narrative asserts that the Islamic State are singularly capable of defending the ummah and reversing its crises through perpetual war. The ummah’s crisis, according to ISKP, is so acute that an intra-jihadi civil war is necessary to purify Islam’s ranks, while sectarian violence with genocidal intent must be wielded simultaneously to purify the lands of Islam and help collapse a global architecture of enemies.  

Around that core narrative, the editors of VOK deploy a variety of thematic and motivational levers, communication styles, and diverse topics. In its first year of publication, VOK’s pages presented Afghanistan as a microcosm for the global struggle, positioning ISKP as a pure and uncompromising global actor, and the Taliban as local, nationalist traitors. By the second half of 2022, the average size of each VOK issue had almost doubled, and its content shifted from an Afghanistan-centric to an increasingly global focus. By the year’s end, VOK had positioned itself as the authentic voice of the Islamic State to English-speaking audiences.   

This first year laid the crucial foundations for ISKP’s sustained internationalisation effort in the years to come. To build momentum behind an international push, ISKP first had to maintain credibility and motivation within its core ranks as well as with local communities from which they historically drew support. If they could not convince their own fighters and local supporters of the crisis at hand, any attempt to persuade new international audiences would have quickly shuttered. However, with their decisive base secured, the potential for regional support opened, and ISKP started by painting the map of nations around Afghanistan with violence. Cross-border attacks and highlighting non-Afghan ISKP martyrs became the core material to reach regional audiences. Over the course of 2022, the case VOK presented was of a region descending into war to purge itself of “puppet” regimes like the Taliban. The war to solve Khurasan’s crisis had not ended in August 2021, it was just entering a new phase.  

Year Two, 2023: The New Global Flagship 

The first VOK issue released in 2023 reflected a clear shift toward a global audience, although Afghanistan and the “Khurasan” region continued to feature prominently. ISKP’s volume of attacks were in decline, but a string of assassinations against senior Taliban leaders in 2023, the re-expansion of operations into northwest Pakistan from 2022 into 2023, violent clashes with the Taliban, reports of expanded ISKP camp presence, and a surge in foreign activity provided ample material to highlight.  

Across the twelve issues released in 2023, Voice of Khurasan established a consistent format and style, a monthly publication tempo, and an average issue size of almost sixty pages, marking a significant editorial commitment. The magazine also begins to appeal directly to Western audiences, featuring authors with kunyas suggesting they were from Europe (Abu Muhammad Al-Italy), North America (Sulaiman Al-Kanadie) and Australia (Abu Khalid Al-Australi). For ISKP, a global Judeo-Christian-Shia alliance, with treacherous fake jihadis from the Taliban and al-Qaeda to Hamas, lies at the heart of Islam’s crippling crisis. Hamas’ 7 October 2023 attack on Israel provided ISKP with the perfect rolling crisis that acted, according to their narratives, as undeniable proof of that worldview. By this point in 2023, ISKP propagandists were signalling claims to represent the global struggle by nature of both their nationalities and the topics they covered.  

At the same time, European and North American intelligence and law enforcement agencies were more seriously raising the alarm. ISKP operatives were reportedly crossing international boundaries into Western homelands and conducting virtual outreach to diaspora communities, including those tapped by ISIS during the 2014-2017 caliphate surge. This marked another major milestone for the group. Not only were they succeeding in shaping perceptions among their supporters, but also among their adversaries. Perhaps just as importantly, the gap was shrinking between words on the pages of VOK issues and ISKP’s increasingly global operations. In short, from 2022 to 2023, VOK pushed the boundaries of ISKP’s influence from the immediate region around Afghanistan outwards to the rest of the globe.  

Year Three, 2024: The Peak  

In 2024, ISKP ground operations in-region are at their weakest since the group’s 2019 trough, punctuated by intermittent sectarian operations to sustain its hardened ranks. Internationally, however, ISKP is consistently viewed as one of the top transnational terrorist threats. Mass casualty ISKP-linked attacks hit Iran, Turkey, and Russia, and Western nations are devoting significant public resources to preventing and countering attacks on their soil. An inspired but foiled plot targets a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna, leading nations to take ISKP’s threats to the Cricket World Cup and Euros 2024 seriously. Concerns spike around entire groups of ethnic Central Asians, especially Tajiks.  

From the quantity and quality of its contents, VOK appears to be thriving as ISKP’s ‘tip of the spear.’ At one end of the spectrum, it reads as the Islamic State’s Foreign Policy or Foreign Affairs with geopolitical analyses covering various aspects of a disintegrating international order. At the other end are highly personal, emotional, and introspective pieces, such as the series “On the path of being a faithful servant.” Between these two bookends are a mix of doctrinal essays, jurisprudential reflections, and direct appeals to certain demographics from Muslims in India to women. As the war in Gaza escalates, VOK highlights “cascading apostasy” and the proximity of the apocalypse to generate a sense of acute, existential crisis, but also a moment of great personal opportunity for its readers to be part of something consequential. This is leveraged to call for donations, attacks, and other forms of support from VOK’s readership.  

2024 was undoubtedly the peak for VOK English-language, but sharply declining ISKP capabilities at home belied the magazine’s efforts. While VOK propagandists were in lockstep amplifying ISKP global operations, at home the group’s core foundations were really starting to shake. International partners, seasoned by years of managing a much more substantial threat from the ISIS caliphate mobilisation, were quickly ramping up efforts at home. In addition, global partners were increasingly pressuring the Taliban and regional authorities to deal with ISKP, if only out of self-interest. Part of that effort included deterring ISKP's collaboration with other regional militant groups, a key source of its threat potential and resilience. VOK propagandists did their best to amplify successes and keep the global momentum going, but the cracks were starting to show.  

Year Four, 2025: The Decline 

VOK began 2025 as it had ended 2024. The first three issues are released on a monthly tempo, average over eighty pages each, and showcase a polished product whose editors are closely monitoring contemporary events while carrying on with serialised content to maintain a sense of narrative continuity. The influence of other jihadi English language magazines, like Inspire and Dabiq, is evident in the fusion of both authoritative and colloquial styles of communication, as well as thematically similar content. In short, VOK had carved its own niche in the annals of jihadi English language propaganda.  

Then there came a three-month pause between the March issue and the next issue released in June, which would be the last of 2025. VOK’s steep decline in 2025 is undoubtedly the product of counter-terrorism operations that reportedly killed or arrested Al-Azaim Media Foundation operatives and dismantled its online translation and distribution networks. Two of the most significant blows were the arrest of Sultan Aziz Azam, ISKP’s spokesman and a key Al-Azaim Media Foundation figure, and the latent impacts of a Europol-led operation that devastated ISKP’s online ecosystem. ISKP has predictably responded to these pressures by contracting and consolidating its base with propaganda efforts focused more locally and in closed online channels. With 2025 laying bare the cracks in ISKP’s foundations and dealing the group significant blows, the lofty heights to which it aspired just months prior now seemed a distant reality.  

Three Lessons for Practitioners 

There are important lessons to draw from Voice of Khurasan: Inside Islamic State Khurasan Province’s English-language Magazine. First, ISKP cemented VOK’s reputation as the Islamic State’s flagship English-language magazine and brought global attention to its struggle in Afghanistan. Subsequent strategic shocks in the global jihadist movement (for example, Gaza and Syria) and sharp declines over the last 12-18 months in ISKP operations, facilitated by major losses, have culled ISKP’s ambitions. The group’s relative silence now must be heralded as the measure of decline it so clearly is, while not taken for granted. Afghanistan under the Taliban remains a haven for extremism, militancy, shadow economies, acute humanitarian crisis, and so many of the factors that ISKP has frequently leveraged over the last ten years to manage losses and come back from the brink. Momentum shifts are rapid and cannot be allowed to surprise. 

Second, for VOK propagandists, the intra-jihadi struggle is the most important contest in the global information theatre. The success of the relatively more gradualist approach of Sunni jihadists in recent years, from the Taliban in Afghanistan to Hayat Tahrir-al-Sham in Syria, is simultaneously a strategic and ideological rebuttal to the Islamic State’s more direct and uncompromising approach. In the battle for the hearts and minds of the world’s Sunni jihadists, this struggle is existential. Sectarian violence must be understood as both an extension of this intra-jihadist struggle as well as an unambiguous commitment to future genocide.  

Third, few things are as devastating to the messenger and the message of terrorist propaganda as “hard” counter-terrorism operations. It is as true of the crippling of Al-Azaim Media Foundation’s multilingual propaganda activities in recent months as it was true during major coalition operations against ISKP propagandists and media infrastructure from 2015-2019. Nevertheless, strategic communications for helping to prevent, counter and build resiliencies to the influence of violent extremists remain an important objective, if one of relative weakness in anti-Daesh efforts.

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