After IS, another IS Cell-- IS-Khorasan in Kabul

Kabul, Jan 11: IS has claimed nearly 20 attacks across Kabul in 18 months, with cells including students, professors and shopkeepers evading Afghan and US security forces.

The cells are running under the nose of Afghan and US forces which are not able to tackle the former.

"This is not just a group that has a rural bastion in eastern Afghanistan - it is staging high casualty, high visibility attacks in the nation's capital and I think that's something to be worried about," said analyst Michael Kugelman of the Wilson Center in Washington.

"We are talking about a generation which has been desensitised to different types of violence and violent extremism," said Borhan Osman, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group.

The Islamic State-Khorasan Province (IS-K), the Middle East group's affiliate in Afghanistan and Pakistan, emerged in the region in 2014, largely made up of disaffected fighters from the Taliban and other jihadist groups in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia.