Taliban arrest 600 IS members in past 3 months; claim 'threats reduced to great extent'

Taliban Intelligence Department in Afghanistan has claimed that at least 600 ISIS terrorists were arrested in the past three months across the nation. It is to mention that the Taliban had gained control of Kabul in the month of August. Since then the Daesh or ISIS has waged a deadly spate of suicide attacks and targeted bombings across multiple provinces and claimed dozens of lives. 

Spokesman for the intelligence department Khalil Hamraz, while speaking at a press conference, said: “In several parts of the country, nearly 600 members of Daesh who were involved in subversive acts and killings were detained. The detainees include some top members. They are in the prisons.”

ISIS or Daesh have carried out several assaults in recent weeks, including a twin bombing of a military hospital in Kabul last week, which left around 19 people dead. The Nangarhar province has also seen an increase in fighting, with the Taliban undertaking counter-offensives targeting "Daesh hideouts," as the regime termed them. Moreover, the terror group has also claimed a massive suicide bombing in Kandahar and another in a Shia community mosque in the northern Kunduz province, killing more than 100 people. 

Afghanistan’s security situation ‘satisfactory’ 

However, Hamraz said that the security situation in the country was “satisfactory”. Separately, speaking at the same conference, the spokesman for the Afghan Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, also denied ISIS as being a major threat in the war-ravaged nation. Mujahid said that 21 ISIS sanctuaries were eliminated in several provinces. 

"Our efforts are continuing to root out (Daesh) but the threats have been reduced to a great extent," Mujahid said. 

It is to mention that Daesh had first emerged in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar region in late 2014. Its goal remains to implement Sharia law. They had previously warned that whoever in the world went against Islam and the Quran will have to face the terror group’s wrath. Experts believe that most of the recruits of the Daesh have defected from the Taliban branches in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan, seeking an even more extreme interpretation of Islam with more international-centred goals of ‘Caliphate control’.

(With inputs from ANI)