Zabihullah Mujahid, Deputy Minister of Culture and Information of the interim government of Afghanistan formed by the radical Taliban movement (banned in the Russian Federation), called the assessment of the number of fighters of the Islamic State terrorist group (IS, banned in the Russian Federation) in the country "far from reality".
"The assessment of the growth of the IS phenomenon in Afghanistan is wrong and far from reality," Mujahid wrote on his Twitter page. He noted that the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" (the name the Taliban uses for the state) and the Afghan people will not allow terrorists from the group to gain a foothold in the country. "IS has been defeated here and is in the process of being eliminated," Mujahid asserted.
On Thursday, Zamir Kabulov, the Russian President's Special Representative for Afghanistan and Director of the Second Asia Department of the Foreign Ministry, said that since the Taliban came to power, the number of IS fighters on Afghan territory has reached about 6,000. "Approximately, it is estimated that their number has reached six thousand. If you remember, after the Taliban came to power, after their harsh steps against the IS militants, their number was about two thousand or something, that is even a threefold increase," he said. "Before the Taliban came to power, there were over ten thousand fighters," Kabulov noted.
Since the Taliban came to power, a series of bombings, armed attacks and shootings have taken place in several provinces of Afghanistan, including the capital region, with both Taliban and civilians as victims. The Islamic State in Khorasan, an offshoot of IS, has claimed responsibility for many of these incidents.
GSV "Russia - Islamic world"
Photo: ErikaWittlieb\Pixabay
Based on materials from TASS