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U.S. Aggressively Continues to Pursue ISK, Al Qaeda in Afghanistan: Spokesman
The U.S. forces in Afghanistan continue its offensive against Islamic State – Khorasan (ISK) province and Al Qaeda, officials said.
According to a Resolute Support Spokesman in Afghanistan, the number of ISK militants in the country have decreased from 3,000 to 1,000 and they have lost one third of territory which was under their control.
“We do have the authority to conduct unilateral operations with defeating Al Qaeda as well as ISK. We very aggressively pursue that mission. Last year, we conducted 350 operations against those terrorists, and specifically, we captured or killed over 200 Al Qaeda members. And we think we degraded the ISK industry by 500 and reduce their overall presence in the country,” Brig. General Charlie Cleveland, the NATO spokesman in Afghanistan said.
NATO officials say the Daesh still controlling around a thousand militants across the country.
The alliance believes there were up to 3,000 members of ISK located in eastern Jalalabad province of Afghanistan and they had a presence in about 10 to 11 districts. Now after a year since the U.S. received the authority to go ahead and target Daesh, the number have decreased to 1,000 with having a presence in only two or three districts.
“There are approximately 1,000 members of ISK in a province in the south. We think they are only in about two to three districts,” Gen. Cleveland added.
Officials reports that there are 98 U.S. designated terrorists organizations in the world and 20 of them are operating in the Afghanistan and Pakistan region.
“The international community does recognize that the Afghans have made progress, but they still have a ways to go, and therefore, we need to remain engaged, and we do remain — and we do need to remain focused on the terrorist threats from the area,” Gen. Cleveland continued.
The main mission of the US forces in Afghanistan is to train, advise and assist Afghan security forces in order to be able to defend their own borders and address terrorist threats.
Currently there are about 9,800 Americans in Afghanistan. The Obama administration has scheduled to take down the number to 8,400 by the first of January 2017 despite of the country having a fragile political and military situation.
Reported by: Fahim Noori
Pakistan’s government on Friday extended the stay of Afghan refugees in the country till June 30, amid repatriation of illegal foreign nationals.
There are around 1.3 million registered Afghans living in Pakistan, according to a spokesman for UN refugee agency UNHCR in Islamabad, Dawn newspaper reported.
“On the recommendation of the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions, the federal cabinet approved the extension of the validity of PoR cards of Afghan refugees from April 1, 2024, to June 30, 2024,” said an official statement, issued by the Prime Minister’s Office.
The PoR cardholders will be repatriated in the third phase of the plan that will begin after the repatriation of “illegal foreign nationals” residing in Pakistan is completed, the statement added.
The PoR card holders avail schools, bank accounts and other facilities in Pakistan.
Repatriation of undocumented refugees began on November 1 and continues. More than 500,000 Afghans have been expelled so far.
John Bass, US acting under secretary of state for political affairs, will travel to Qatar and Pakistan April 26-30, US State Department announced on Friday.
In Doha, Qatar, he will meet with senior Qatari government officials and other diplomatic missions to discuss support for Afghanistan and shared security interests in the region, US State Department said in a statement.
In Islamabad, Pakistan, Under Secretary Bass will meet with senior Pakistani government officials to discuss a range of regional and bilateral issues as part of the U.S.-Pakistani partnership, the statement added.
John Bass served as US ambassador to Afghanistan under Donald Trump administration between December 2017 and January 2020.
A tripartite meeting between the delegations of Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan was held in Kabul with the aim of connecting North Asia to South Asia and reducing transit and transportation costs among these three countries, the Ministry of Trade and Commerce said in a statement.
In this meeting, an agreement was reached on the creation of a joint technical committee to continue the talks.
This tripartite meeting was held under the leadership of Nooruddin Azizi, the Acting Minister of Industry and Commerce, Vice President of Turkmenistan and Srik Zhumangarin, the Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan.
Earlier, a bilateral meeting was held between the delegation of the Islamic Emirate and Turkmenistan. The ministry of commerce said the participants of the meeting discussed the construction of a large joint logistics center in Torghondi, the trilateral transit agreement between the IEA, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan, the expansion of Afghanistan’s railway, solving issues related to Afghan transit and export goods, and a number of other commercial issues.
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