Daesh Intensifies Recruitment for Afghanistan

Afghanistan Ministry of National Defense (MoD) says that the Daesh group has step up recruitment from Syria, Iraq and extremist groups in Pakistan for Afghanistan war.

MoD emphasizes that the Islamic State group is attempting once again to use Afghanistan as a base against other countries.

“Daesh group has step up recruitment for Afghanistan, but Afghan security forces will stand against them,” said Muhammad Radmanish, spokesman of MoD.

This comes as US president Barack Obama has also warned about Daesh seeking to expand presence in Afghanistan.

“As ISIL tries to expand its presence in Afghanistan, foreign forces continue to play a vital role is we train and assist Afghan forces and support Afghan development,” said President Barack Obama.

There is evidences to suggest that ISIS is operating in the country. A series of brutal attacks on civilian have baffled investigators during the current year, such as the deadly attack on a protest by civilians in Kabul.

ISIS aims to convince impressionable young Westerners that its brutal interpretation of Islam is how God intended believers to live and that all those who oppose the group can justifiably be murdered.

The vast majority of foreign fighters who have signed up to join ISIS in the past are aged between 15 and 20-years-old and have never been involved in a conflict before, according to Abdurrahman Saleh – a spokesman for the Islam Army, part of the Islamic Front rebel group.

Many of these jihadists are thought to have easily entered Afghanistan across the Pakistani border.

In the summer of 2015, fighting broke out between the Taliban and IS, after the former asked the migrant jihadists to close their madrasas and courts, and confiscated their weapons consignments.

But subsequently, the Taliban lost much of the territory it gained in Nangarhar to an IS counter-offensive.