Islamic State violence dents Taliban claims of safer Afghanistan

"They are trying to undermine and discredit the Taliban Emirate. The Emirate promised security and they're trying to show they can't deliver it," said Antonio Giustozzi, a specialist in jihadi groups from the Royal United Services Institute in London. He said Islamic State, which he estimated to have around 4,000 fighters, had been carrying out a campaign of targeted killings since around the summer of 2020 and had continued since the Taliban victory in August on a "roughly comparable scale".