In January 2024, two ISIS–K attackers carried out twin suicide bombings in Kerman, Iran, during a procession mourning the US assassination of Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani, killing 94.

[24][25] In June 2024, US officials arrested eight Tajik men in Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia, who were reportedly involved in an ISIS–K plot within the United States, with connections to a larger ISIS–K cell being monitored in Central Europe.

Jamat al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad ('Organization of Monotheism and Jihad'), led by Jordanian Salafist jihadist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, quickly gained notoriety for bloody attacks on Shia mosques, civilians, Iraqi government, American, and foreign troops.

In 2004, Zarqawi swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden and the group became part of Ayman al-Zawahiri's campaign against the United States, becoming known as al-Qaeda in Iraq or AQI.

Under the 2007 surge of American troops in Iraq, AQI was diminished until 2011 when the group newly under the leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, began to reemerge and spread into the nascent Syrian civil war.

Although al-Qaeda-linked Afghan and Pakistani jihadists had traveled to fight in the Levant as early as 2003, most groups had been small in number and quickly integrated into assorted ISIS units.

These ten commanders would become ISIS–K's early senior figures, including Sheikh Mohsin and Sa'ad Emarati who would become ISIS–K's first emirs of Kunar and Logar Province, respectively.

Once complete, these fighters would transit across Iran and Turkey to reach Syria, mostly posing as economic migrants, or on commercial flights for more senior leaders.

At the time, commanders found it fairly easy to motivate fighters to join the fight in Syria, as most assumed their former organization would eventually sign a peace deal with the Afghan or Pakistani government, and because the money was more attractive than the region's faltering Taliban donors.

[28] Through early 2014, even before the Islamic State would officially separate from al-Qaeda and declare a caliphate in Iraq and Syria, al-Baghdadi (caliph of ISIS), Muslim Turkmani (deputy emir), and Abu Omar al-Shishani (senior commander in Raqqa) had been strongly advocating that the volunteers set up a new branch (wilayah) in Afghanistan and Pakistan with the territories of Iran and Central Asia as later goals.

On 3 April 2014, al-Shishani appointed Qari Wali Rahman, an Afghan from Baghlan, who had been fighting in Syria since 2013, to be the Islamic State's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

These groups shared with ISIS–K a violent opposition to Shia Muslims and the desire to replace existing secular and democratic institutions in the region with a powerful Islamic state.

Many of these groups, prior to the establishment of ISIS–K, relied on limited support from al-Qaeda, which by the time of ISIS–K's founding had been dismissed as too focused and engaged in the struggle against NATO forces in Afghanistan and not on other Central Asian jihadist movements.

[47] On 26 July 2020, a United Nations report stated that even though the IS branch in Afghanistan had undergone further severe reverses in its former Afghan strongholds of Nangarhar and Kunar provinces, it was too soon to discount it as a threat.

[51] On 12 May 2020, a hospital's maternity ward in Kabul and a funeral in Kuz Kunar were attacked, resulting in the deaths of 56 people and injuries of 148 others, including newborn babies, mothers, nurses, and mourners.

[56] On 26 August 2021, an ISIS–K suicide bomber attacked Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, killing over 170 people, including 28 Taliban members and 13 U.S. military personnel.

[57] Amidst the Taliban advance on Kabul in preceding weeks, hundreds to thousands of ISIS–K prisoners had been released or otherwise escaped from detention, leading to U.S. fears of attacks on the airport and future targets.

[61] On 6 September 2022, the Human Rights Watch reported that since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021, the ISIS–K has claimed responsibility for 13 attacks against Hazaras and has been linked to at least 3 more, killing and injuring at least 700 people.

According to ISIS-Central's an-Naba newsletter's 338th issue, the group launched seven rockets from a Katyusha launcher from the Afghan-Tajik border in Takhar Province targeting the "headquarters of the apostate Tajik army."

[66] ISIS–K's third external operation, the first of which to gain high-profile international attention and produce obvious casualties, was a twin bombing on 3 January 2024[b] against a gathering of Iranians mourning the death of former Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force (QF) commander, Qasem Soleimani, at his grave in Kerman, Iran.

[75] On 4 April 2020, the National Directorate of Security announced the arrest of the head of IS Aslam Farooqi by the Afghan military forces who took him into custody along with 20 other commanders.

[81] After an exchange of fire which killed one "terrorist", three other suspects were arrested, one of them being Noreen Leghari, a student from Hyderabad, Pakistan who was claimed to be missing by her family four days prior to the raid.

[82] On a confessional statement released by ISPR, Noreen confessed to joining IS through a terrorist she met on social media, She also told authorities that she was recruited by IS to attack a church in Lahore on the Easter Sunday, two suicide jackets, four hand grenades and bullets were provided to them.

[84] On 26 April 2017, a joint raid operation committed by U.S. Army Rangers and Afghan Special Forces in the Nangarhar Province resulted in the death of Sheikh Abdul Hasib, the leader of IS in Afghanistan.

While the exact mechanisms of this financial relationship remain undisclosed, it is evident that support from ISIS-Central plays a pivotal role in strengthening ISIS–K's operational capacity.

The local taxation approach reflects the group's ability to exploit the economic resources of the territories under its control, emphasizing a dynamic financial strategy tailored to the circumstances of each region.

The involvement in criminal enterprises demonstrated ISIS–K's ability to adapt its funding strategies, indicating a level of sophistication in navigating a range of revenue-generating activities.

[28] Overall, ISIS–K's financing structure is characterized by a combination of internal support from ISIS-Central, local taxation in controlled territories, external funding from sympathetic patrons, and engagement in criminal enterprises.

Despite the continued opposition between ISIS–K and the Taliban, there exist infrequent cases of the two groups' cooperation during the NATO war in Afghanistan, primarily in the form of attacks on the minority Shia Hazara.

The head of the Islamic State's envisioned caliphate, with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (29 June 2014 – 27 October 2019) the longest serving, is known as the 'Caliph' (خَلِيفَةْ) to all members of the organization.