ISIS affiliate claims spate of attacks on Taliban in Afghan city of Jalalabad
By Tim Lister, CNN
The eastern city of Jalalabad in Afghanistan has seen a spate of attacks against the Taliban this week by the group IS Khorasan (ISIS-K), an affiliate of ISIS.
ISIS-K claimed three attacks in the city on Wednesday and Thursday. Through ISIS’ official Amaq media outlet, it claimed to have killed six Taliban personnel in three different attacks. Two were carried out with guns and the third used an improvised explosive advice. In Thursday’s attack, the group claimed that “Caliphate soldiers targeted a member of the Taliban militia with pistol shots, which led to his death.”
CNN cannot independently verify the casualties claimed by ISIS-K. Local media said three civilians had been killed in the attacks.
The Taliban have not commented on the attacks, but local media quote security officials as saying that three ISIS-K members were killed on Tuesday. The circumstances of their deaths are unclear.
ISIS-K claimed the suicide attack at Kabul airport last month, in which more than 170 people were killed. The bomber identified by the group came from the province of Logar.
Charlie Winter at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College, London said on Twitter that after “going dark” in the wake of the Kabul attack, the group had “once more kick-started its operations” in Afghanistan.
The analytic group Extrac, which follows violent extremism, notes that on September 19 alone, ISIS-K claimed seven attacks in Afghanistan, focused on what it calls ‘the Taliban apostate militia.’
According to Reuters, the group said through Amaq’s Telegram channel that it had killed 35 Taliban members in blasts on September 18 and 19. The Taliban did not immediately comment on the casualty claims, Reuters said.
ISIS-K has been active in the province of Nangahar, of which Jalalabad is the capital, since 2015. Last year it staged a raid on Jalalabad’s prison — allowing dozens of prisoners to escape.
On Thursday the US Defense Department announced that an ISIS-K “facilitator” named Kabir Aidi was killed in a US drone strike in Nangahar on August 27. The Pentagon said Aidi was “directly connected” to the suicide attack at Kabul airport.
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