A senior Taliban official on Wednesday said Daesh will soon be removed from areas where they are active, following the death of a Taliban deputy governor in a bombing claimed by the terrorist group.
Mawlawi Nasir Ahmad Ahmadi, Taliban’s deputy governor for Badakhshan and its acting governor for the province was killed in a car bomb attack in the city of Faizabad, the northern province of Badakhshan, on Tuesday morning. In December, a Taliban police chief was killed in a bombing in Balkh that was also claimed by Daesh.
Taliban’s army chief Qari Fasihuddin Fitrat vowed to remove Daesh in the near future.
“This heinous phenomenon that has emerged here under the name of Khawarij (the name Taliban uses for Daesh) will be removed soon. I am sure of that. They’re those who cannot show their faces to know which group they belong, to which religion they belong. They cannot show their faces,” Fitrat said.
Over the past two years of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, Daesh has conducted numerous attacks on Taliban members and civilians.
Analysts said that the group has its agents among the Taliban.
“There are various proxy groups among them who weaken their rule. Their opponents always emerge from within their own,” military affairs analyst Mirza Mohammad Yarmand said.
Three months back, Taliban’s governor for Balkh, Daud Muzammil, was killed in a bombing in his office in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif. Daesh claimed responsibility for the attack.
“Daesh is no one else except extremist groups that were mujahid first, then became Taliban and then Daesh and other groups. They’re changing to different groups but all are Islamist extremist groups,” said Wali Farzan, a political affairs analyst.
Analysts say that it has become more difficult for the Taliban to provide security in the north and northeast of Afghanistan than in the past. They said that Taliban is being targeted with the same methods they have been using for the past 20 years; only the place of the actors has changed while the violent methods remain in place.
