Daesh militants murder Muslim preacher in eastern Afghanistan

Members of the Takfiri Daesh militant group have shot and killed a Muslim preacher in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Nangarhar as they seek to promote their own heavily distorted and austere interpretation of religious principles in the areas under their control.

Niamatullah Noorzai, governor of the Bati Kot district, said Daesh extremists fatally shot Mawlawi Gul Agha at around 7 a.m. local time (0230 GMT) on Wednesday as he was en route to a seminary close to his residence in the district, located 140 kilometers (86 miles) east of the capital, Kabul.

The assassination comes as Afghan officials say Daesh terrorists are planning to launch attacks against a number of towns in Nangarhar Province.

Haji Ghalib, a governor of the Achin district in the troubled province, said on Monday that Daesh extremists are currently in a defensive mode and sporadically engage in exchanges of gunfire with Afghan security forces.

He added that Daesh militants, among them a number of foreign nationals, have fled the districts of Momand Dara and Abdul Khel to Bati Kot, Dur Baba and Nazyan districts after Afghan government troopers launched an offensive against the extremists.

“They (Daesh militants) want to carry out hit-and-run attacks in the districts they have fled to, and their aim is to shift the attention of security forces on something else. Nevertheless, we are aware and we have enough forces in all the related areas,” Ghalib pointed out.

Nangarhar has been witnessing a rise in the number of Daesh terrorists in some of its districts in recent months.

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

Taliban asked the Daesh leader to keep his men out of Afghanistan by withdrawing his support for those elements that are recruiting young militants in Taliban strongholds.

Afghanistan is gripped by insecurity nearly 14 years after the United States and its allies attacked the country as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror.