Taliban terrorists ordered to hunt down Islamic State fighters in Afghanistan

Taliban special forces have been ordered to hunt down Islamic State fighters in Afghanistan, a spokesperson for the Taliban said on Wednesday.

Taliban forces have already killed or arrested some Islamic State members, a group the Taliban labels as “seditious forces,” Taliban spokesperson Bilal Karimi said.

Karimi claimed that the Islamic State in Afghanistan did not have any physical strongholds, but said the fighters were trying to downgrade even their “invisible” presence to zero.

The Taliban did not disclose where its operations were taking place, but some local broadcasters said they had started cracking down on the extremist group in Kabul and in the eastern province of Nangarhar.

A local Taliban official, along with two other members, was wounded in an explosion in the eastern Afghan province of Kunar on Wednesday, the state-run Bakhtar news agency reported.

A roadside bomb hit the vehicle of Taliban’s newly appointed director of mines and petroleum in the provincial capital of Asadabad, the agency said, quoting a provincial Taliban spokesperson.

One of the wounded Taliban members was reportedly in critical condition.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the Wednesday attack.

In recent weeks, Islamic State militants have claimed a series of attacks on the Taliban in eastern parts of the country, particularly in Nangarhar.

Islamic State has had a long presence in the province and has been fighting the Taliban there.

In the past, the Taliban accused the previous government under now-fugitive president Ashraf Ghani of supporting and harbouring Islamic State members so they could fight the Taliban.

Since 2015, when the so-called Islamic State for Khurasan Province first announced its presence in Afghanistan, the extremist group has staged numerous deadly attacks, mainly targeting the country’s Shi’ite Hazara community.

The group claimed a deadly suicide bombing at Kabul’s airport on August 26, when thousands of Afghans were trying to flee the country following the Taliban’s lightning takeover of the capital.

Source: War Is Boring