JALALABAD (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th December, 2019) A month after the Afghan authorities announced victory over the Islamic State terrorist group (IS, banned in Russia) in the Nangarhar province, Governor Shahmahmood Miakhel opened up to Sputnik about how the government forces managed to crush the militants and where the latter mostly originate from.
After the Taliban rule collapsed in 2001, the radical movement retained a certain presence in the province, staging attacks against government forces. Years later, Nangarhar found itself squeezed between the Taliban and the IS, which took root in this very eastern province in 2014.
In November, acting Afghan Interior Minister Massoud Andarabi announced that the IS had been defeated in the country, pledging that the small cells remaining would be eliminated. Later that same month, President Ashraf Ghani confirmed the news during his visit to Nangarhar.
Now, 21 out of the 22 provincial districts are under the control of the Afghan forces. Hundreds of IS militants have surrendered or fled. The Taliban, meanwhile, retains a presence only in the Hisarak district after having faced a civilian uprising in the others.
Miakhel assumed the office of governor in early February, with his main mission being to establish better coordination among the security forces and locals to eliminate militants in the province.
In an interview with Sputnik, Miakhel said that in order to defeat the IS, the government forces first needed to block the terrorists' supply routes.
"When we encamped the Chapihar [district] near Nangarhar East and Jalalabad city and the Surkh Rod district in the west of Nangarhar, our focus was ... to block the routes by which the IS gets supplies. And a port area, Achin's Bagh Dara area has to be in our control. We were convinced that the supply routes to the IS must be cut off, then the IS cannot fight, because with [the government forces] occupying these areas, their contact with the Orakzai region (beyond the Durand Line, in Pakistan) has been cut off," he explained.
Once the task was accomplished, the IS terrorists were forced to either flee or surrender, the governor said, adding that the majority were captured and that the militants mainly came from Pakistan, rather than Afghanistan. Earlier, Gen. Nazar Ali, the director of Nangarhar National Security, notably called the IS a "Pakistani intelligence," saying that "there will be not 10 Afghans among the IS militants who surrendered and were arrested. All of them come from outside the Durand line."
"The majority of those who surrendered are from the Orakzai region, from 60 percent to 70 percent of the IS are from the Orakzai region. Others are from other parts of Pakistan, such as Bajaur, Tirah, Punjab and some others, and some of them are Afghans," Miakhel said.
Because the Taliban claimed in November that they had actually defeated the IS group in Nangarhar, Sputnik asked Miakhel about his reaction to this statement.
The governor said that the Taliban's claim was "not correct." According to Miakhel, whenever the government forces drove away either the Taliban or the IS from one area, the other group sought to take over this territory. He added that "whoever destroys the security of the area, the Taliban or the IS," the Afghan government will fight them.
The announcement of the Islamic State's defeat has given local people hope for a return to normal life and work.
Shoemaker Sayed Naeem, who works daily on Talashi avenue in the provincial capital of Jalalabad, told Sputnik that he feared going to work a year ago when the IS stepped up its attacks in the city. Now the situation has changed, with the terror threat lowering.
"There was a situation in Jalalabad city that when we left the house every morning, we would think we may not return, sometimes my wife and children told me: 'don't go there,' but there was no other variant but to go to work, I should have worked. The situation is much better now," Naeem said.
Hazrat Ali, who was displaced from the Achin district to Jalalabad four years ago, agreed that the security situation had shifted, admitting that he had initially doubted that the group would be defeated.
"When the IS blew up the leaders of Shinawari [tribe], we left the area on that day and moved to Jalalabad city. Some of our villagers were killed by IS militants, our homes were destroyed, and now the situation is good, I might move back home," he said.
According to Nurullah, a civic activist in Jalalabad, the IS finally lost because its brutality does not conform to the culture and values of the people in Nangarhar.
"At first, when the IS began operating, it was thought that this group would capture Nangarhar, but as they tested the gravest forms of brutality, they insulted the values and culture of Afghans. This group was destroyed by the coordination and cooperation of the people," Nurullah said.
