ISIL/Da'esh Rapidly Gaining Ground In Parts Of Afghanistan: VOA
Fahad Shabbir (@FahadShabbir) Published June 24, 2017 | 10:40 PM
NEW YORK, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 24th Jun, 2017 ) : Amid surging violence, ISIL/Da'esh is rapidly expanding in parts of Afghanistan, advancing militarily into areas where it once had a weak presence and strengthening its forces in core regions, according o a report broadcast by Voice of America.
Citing Afghan and U.S. officials, VOA said the proliferation of the terrorist group has drawn varied resistance from the Afghan military, US air support and ground troops, local militias, Taliban forces and other militant groups.
Meanwhile, the State Department is winding down the office responsible for developing long-range strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan - just as the Trump administration conducts a major review of the future of the Afghan war, America's longest.
The office of the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, which once drew experts from nearly a dozen government agencies, will be folded into the State Department's Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, The New York Times reported on Friday.
Former President Barack Obama created the office in January 2009 when he named Richard Holbrooke, a celebrated diplomat who brokered the Dayton peace accords to end the Bosnian war, as the first special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Times said the Trump administration's decision to wind up the office now, at the very moment it is devising a strategy for Afghanistan, underlines the Pentagon's outsize role in the process.
Last week, President Donald Trump authorized Defence Secretary Jim Mattis to send thousands of additional troops into a war that currently engages 8,800 American troops. The awkward timing was not lost on Mr.
Trump's critics. "The Pentagon is contemplating more war in Afghanistan, while the State Department is shutting down the office that could give it a voice in that important development," Vali Nasr, who was a senior adviser on Pakistan in the office between 2009 and 2011, was quoted as saying.
According to VOA, attacking ISIL/D'esh has become such a priority in the country, that disparate forces sometimes join together in the ad-hoc fight, with Afghan and US forces finding themselves inadvertently supporting the enemy Taliban in battling the expanding group.
All too often, mistakes are made due to confusion on the ground, VOA said, citing unnamed officials. Afghan army planes on Wednesday night accidentally air dropped vital supplies of food and water to IS militants in the Darzab district of northern Jouzjan province instead of to their own besieged troops, provincial police chief, Rahmatullah Turkistani told VOA.
The supplies were meant to help Afghan forces that are countering twin attacks by IS and Taliban militants but were used instead by the IS. "It's not getting better in Afghanistan in terms of ISIL," US Chief Pentagon Spokeswoman Dana White told VOA this week.
"We have a problem, and we have to defeat them and we have to be focused on that problem." Reinforcements for the ISIL cause reportedly are streaming into isolated areas of the country from far and wide.
There are reports of fighters from varied nationalities joining the ranks, including militants from India, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Pkistan, Russia and Central Asian neighbors. Still, the Islamic State-Khorasan (ISK) as IS is known in Afghanistan remains a fragmented group composed of differing regional forces with different agendas in different parts of the country, VOA said.
"IS-K is still conducting low-level recruiting and distribution of propaganda in various provinces across Afghanistan, but it does not have the ability or authority to conduct multiple operations across the country," a recent Pentagon report said.
But where it operates, ISIL is inflicting chaos and casualties and causing confusing scenarios for disparate opponents. In the Tora Bora area, where ISIL has made a strong stand in recent days, local villagers and militias joined with Taliban to rout ISIL.
The terrorist group regained ground after a few days, leading to US military air attacks on IS positions in conjunction with Afghan intelligence instructions and army operations. ISIL fighters reportedly have fled from mountain caves of Tora Bora, where al-Qaeda's leader Osama bin Laden hid from a US attack in 2001, the report pointed out.
ISIL fighters were also reportedly advancing in neighboring Khogyani district, displacing hundreds of families, according to district officials. It is one of several areas in Nangarhar province where ISIL has been active for over two years.
Fierce clashes in the Chaparhar district of Nangarhar last month left 21 Taliban fighters and seven ISIL militants dead, according to a provincial spokesman. At least three civilians, who were caught in the crossfire, were killed and five others wounded.
"ISIL has overpowered Taliban in some parts of Nangarhar because the Taliban dispatched its elite commando force called Sara Qeta (Red Brigade) to other parts of the country, including some northern provinces to contain the growing influence of IS there," Wahid Muzhda, a Taliban expert in Kabul, told VOA.
ISIL has also expanded in neighboring Kunar province, where, according to the provincial police chief, it has a presence in at least eight districts and runs a training base, where foreign members of IS, train new recruits.
Hundreds of miles from Nangarhar, ISIL is attempting to establish a persistent presence in several northern provinces where it has found a fertile ground for attracting militants and recruiting unemployed youths, mostly between the age of 13 and 20.
ISIL has been able to draw its members from the Pakistani Taliban fighters, former Afghan Taliban, and other militants who "believe that associating with or pledging allegiance" to IS will further their interests, according to the Pentagon report.
Hundreds of militants have joined ISIL ranks in northern Jouzjan and Sar-e-Pul province where local militant commanders lead IS-affiliate groups in several districts, the report said. In New York, the United Nations envoy for Afghanistan, Tadamichi Yamamoto, said Afghans need to see their government taking the reins for security in the country, delivering much needed services and creating jobs.
At the same time, Yamamoto noted that that the international community needs to keep the promises made at the Brussels conference last October to support Afghanistan politically and financially on its path towards peace, development and a stable economy.
Yamamoto, the Secretary-General's Special Representative and head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), was in New York this week to brief the Security Council on the latest developments in the country.
In an interview with UN Radio,, he said a lot more work needs to be done by the Afghan government in terms of trying to have more intelligence networks and collaboration with the countries in the region, as well as some other countries, to try to have the necessary information available to tackle the situation.
Also, the effectiveness of how they run the security machine has to be looked at very carefully. "Another thing they have to do is to ensure, with regard to the recent incidents, that investigations are conducted thoroughly, and also those who were responsible for the security will need to be accountable for the situation depending on the findings."
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