At least Six people suspected of being members of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group were killed during a nighttime Taliban operation. In northern Afghanistan, at a time when authorities are ramping up their attacks against the terrorist movement. Balkh police officer Mohammad Asif Waziri said the operation took place around midnight in the Nahr Shahi district of northern Balkh province and resulted in the deaths of six ISIS members about three and a half hours later.
The Taliban have stepped up their involvement in the jihadist group in this province in recent weeks, especially after a suicide attack on March 9 killed the governor of Balkh and three others. Security forces have killed at least three leading ISIS members in some of the latest operations, the fundamentalist government’s General Intelligence Directorate (DGI) reported last week. According to DGI, these deaths include Zainuddin, the interim head of operations in northern Balkh province and the second most popular face of the jihadist group; Abu Omar Afridi, member of the ISIS council; and Ustad Salman Tajikistani, in charge of military training.
Despite the increase in operations against the Afghan branch of ISIS, Taliban insists terrorist group is under control This is hardly a problem, as Zabiullah Mujahid, spokesman for the fundamentalist interim government, reiterated in a recent interview with local radio.
Since the Taliban came back to power in Afghanistan a year and a half ago, dozens of suspected ISIS members have died in operations carried out by fundamentalists to deliver on the security guarantees they boasted before coming to government. However, the jihadist formation continues to take responsibility for most of the attacks that have taken place in the country in recent months. fundamentalists maintain strong competition with the terrorist formationemerging as one of the main security threats in Afghanistan after the Taliban came to power in August 2021.