5 Daesh militants killed in Afghan security operation in Nangarhar

Afghan forces have killed at least five Daesh Takfiri militants in a security operation in the country’s eastern province of Nangarhar.

Colonel Hazrat Hussain Mashriqiwal, the spokesman for the Nangarhar police headquarters, said on Sunday that the militants had been killed during an operation in the Kot district the previous day.

According to the Afghan official, three other militants were also wounded in the joint operation carried out by police, army forces and the National Directorate of Security (NDS) — Afghanistan’s intelligence service.

“Joint security forces and civilians did not suffer harms and the operation is successfully ongoing,” Mashriqiwal added.

The operation comes as Nangarhar has been witnessing a rise in the activities of Daesh terrorists in at least seven of its districts in recent months.

On June 16, the Taliban warned Daesh ringleader, Ibrahim al-Samarrai aka Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, against “waging a parallel insurgency in Afghanistan.”

Meanwhile, reports indicate that Daesh militants are currently running three jails in Nangarhar, holding 127 people, including religious scholars, local officials and Afghan police officers.

The recent threat posed by Daesh comes as Afghan security forces are already facing attacks by Taliban militants, nearly 14 years after the US-led invasion of the country.

Washington and its allies attacked Afghanistan in 2001 as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror. Although the attack overthrew the Taliban, many areas across Afghanistan still face violence and insecurity.