ISIS affiliate claims spate of attacks in Afghan city of Jalalabad



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ISIS-K claimed responsibility for three attacks in the city on Wednesday and Thursday. Through ISIS’s official Amaq media, he claimed to have killed six Taliban personnel in three different attacks. Two were executed with firearms and the third used an improvised explosive board. In Thursday’s attack, the group claimed that “Caliphate soldiers targeted a member of the Taliban militia with pistol shots, resulting in his death.”

CNN cannot independently verify victims claimed by ISIS-K. Local media said three civilians were killed in the attacks.

The Taliban did not comment on the attacks, but local media quotes security officials as saying that three ISIS-K operatives were killed on Tuesday. The circumstances of their deaths are unclear.

ISIS-K has claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing at Kabul airport last month, in which more than 170 people were killed. The suicide bomber identified by the group was from Logar province.

Charlie Winter of the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King’s College London said on Twitter that after “darkening” in the aftermath of the Kabul attack, the group had “once again restarted its operations. operations “in Afghanistan.

Analysis group Extrac, which tracks violent extremism, notes that on September 19 alone, ISIS-K claimed responsibility for seven attacks in Afghanistan, focused on what it calls “the apostate Taliban militia.”

According to Reuters, the group said via Amaq’s Telegram channel that it killed 35 Taliban operatives in explosions on September 18 and 19. The Taliban did not immediately comment on the victims’ claims, Reuters said.

ISIS-K has been active in Nangahar province, of which Jalalabad is the capital, since 2015. Last year, it organized a raid on Jalalabad prison, allowing dozens of prisoners to escape.

On Thursday, the US Department of Defense 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 linked” to the suicide attack at Kabul airport.

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