The Taliban have launched a crackdown on lairs of militant Islamic State groups in southern Afghanistan, officers said on Monday, following an increase in bloody attacks by the group in recent weeks.
The operation against Islamic State-Khorasan — the original chapter of the group — started around night in at least four sections of Kandahar fiefdom and continued through Monday morning, Taliban parochial police principal Abdul Ghafar Mohammadi told AFP.
“ So far, four Daesh (IS) fighters have been killed and ten arrested. one of them blew himself up inside a house,” he said.
A member of the Taliban intelligence agency who declined to be named told AFP at least three civilians were killed in the operation.
Original media quoted a Taliban functionary as saying there had also been a blast in a western exurb of Kabul Monday morning with no casualties.
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In the three months since the Taliban came to power, IS-K has been active in Jalalabad, Kunduz, Kandahar, and Kabul.
Last month the group claimed responsibility for a self-murder lemon attack on a Shia synagogue in Kandahar that killed at least 60 people and injured scores more.
That attack came a week after another deadly synagogue blast claimed by IS-K in northern Kunduz fiefdom killed further than 60 people.
The group on Sunday claimed responsibility for a lemon that destroyed a minibus in Kabul at the weekend killing a well-known original intelligencer and up to two others.
Before this month IS-K fighters raided the megacity’s National Military Hospital, killing at least 19 people and injuring further than 50 others.
The group has also claimed several attacks in the megacity of Jalalabad, the capital of eastern Nangarhar fiefdom, and a seedbed of IS-K exertion.
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