Taliban prepares to finally end Isil’s grip on Afghan strongholds
TALIBAN commanders say they are preparing a major offensive to drive Isil militants from their stronghold in Afghanistan.
Hundreds of fighters spearheaded by the Taliban’s so-called Red Unit elite forces are said to be massing for a multi-fronted attack on the local branch of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) in Nangarhar province.
The Taliban announcement comes days after another large Taliban operation swept away Isil’s northern Afghan enclave, in Jowzjan province.
The rival militant groups have been enemies since the first appearance of Isil in Afghanistan in 2015 and regularly clash. The Taliban have for weeks been trying to clear Isil fighters from the eastern provinces of Laghman, Nuristan and Kunar before a “conclusive” fight for Nangarhar.
Nangarhar has become Isil’s Afghan stronghold and intense Us-led air strikes and counter terrorism raids have failed to shift the extremists. Isil has boasted of a string of deadly suicide bombings in the province in recent weeks.
An unnamed Taliban commander told a local news agency: “The crimes and brutalities of this group have reached the peak and they have been targeting public properties, schools, educational institutions, religious minorities and ordinary civilians. [The Taliban] has now decided to take decisive steps against this group.”
Sources on both sides said skirmishing was ongoing in parts of Nangarhar, where Isil are estimated to fully or partly control more than a third of its districts, with the major offensive expected soon.
More than 150 Isil fighters surrendered in Jowzjan last week after they were surrounded by hundreds of Taliban fighters. But an Isil source told The Daily Telegraph that their defeat there was unlikely to be repeated in Nangarhar and Kunar where mountains and forests favoured the defenders.
♦ One of the Western former hostages held by the Isil “Beatles” said he did not want to see the men face the death penalty, as he returned to northern Syria to face two of his former captors.
Ricardo Vilanova, a Spanish photojournalist, told the BBC: “I don’t believe in [the] death penalty but I think they should spend the rest of their lives in prison and in the same conditions they kept their hostages.”
Mr Vilanova, who spent eight months in Isil captivity, had earlier sat down with Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, who are accused of belonging to the four-man Isil cell dubbed the Beatles. The two men refused to speak to Mr Vilanova.
The UK has recently dropped the requirement that the US guarantee the two men will not receive the death penalty if it supports America in securing a conviction on US soil.