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IS ‘defeated’ in key Afghan province: official
JALALABAD, Afghanistan, Nov 10, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – The Islamic State group’s
Afghan branch has been “defeated” in one of the key eastern provinces where
it first sought to establish a stronghold, a top Afghan security official
said Sunday.
The claim comes after the jihadists first burst into Afghanistan’s
conflict in 2015, when they overran large parts of Nangarhar and Kunar
provinces, near the Pakistan border.
In the years since, they have claimed responsibility for a string of
horrific bombings across Afghanistan, including at a wedding hall in Kabul,
and have been continually attacked by US, Afghan and even Taliban forces.
IS “were defeated in Nangarhar, their centres were destroyed”, acting
interior minister Massoud Andarabi told reporters in Jalalabad, the Nangarhar
provincial capital, amid ongoing operations against the jihadists.
“We will soon destroy their last centres. With the people’s help, we will
completely eliminate them. Some of their smaller groups are surrendering,
other small groups will be eliminated in other provinces.”
He went on to say that IS were being “completely defeated” in Afghanistan.
US Forces-Afghanistan, which closely monitors the IS footprint in
Afghanistan, declined to comment, referring a query back to the Interior
Ministry.
Attaullah Khogyani, the spokesman for Nangarhar’s governor, said 32 IS
fighters surrendered to government forces on Saturday.
“They are coming in big numbers,” he told AFP.
IS have suffered a string of major defeats in recent months, including the
collapse of their self-proclaimed “caliphate” in Syria and the death of the
group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was killed in a US raid in Syria
last month.
Connections between Baghdadi and the IS affiliate in Afghanistan, better
known as IS in the Khorasan, or IS-K, have always been murky.
But Khogyani said Baghdadi’s death had disrupted IS-K’s command and
control structure.
“It has affected the fighters on the ground here, they are either
surrendering to the government or going back to their ordinary lives,” he
said.
BSS/AFP/FI/ 1845 hrs