US Monitoring Daesh Presence in Afghanistan: Mark Toner

US State Department spokesman, Mark Toner has said that the United States has made a long-term commitment to build a more stable, peaceful, democratic, and prosperous Afghan future.

Mark Toner said that the US is trying to reduce differences between President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah.

While delivering a press briefing in the United States capital, Toner demanded Afghan Taliban to subdue themselves to the constitution and play their role in restoring peace.

He stated that Taliban must understand what political leadership of Afghanistan asks of them. Long battle is not the solution to problems, he said adding that the United States would continue to support those who are striving for peace and stability in Afghanistan including country’s army.

He said that the United States made efforts to stop funding of terrorists across the globe but total halt to sponsorship remains a challenge.

In the meantime, the American official also said that The US is monitoring the movement of ISIS and its affiliated groups in Afghanistan besides helping the latter’s security forces to fight out the terrorist organisation which is trying to expand its base rapidly in the war-torn country.

“We are always looking at ISIL’s ability to find safe haven and then expand to work with, these affiliate groups, factions of groups such as the Taliban that they might be able to exploit. We are monitoring it very closely,” State Department Deputy Spokesman Mark Toner told reporters on Wednesday.

“We’re in close contact and coordination with the Afghan Security Forces in that regard, and we’re going to continue. If we see opportunities to take out key leadership, we’re going to strike,” he said while responding to a question and reiterated that reconciliation process with the Taliban needs to be an “Afghan-led, Afghan-owned process”.

“Any time you’ve got various splinter groups emerging, that does make those efforts more complex, but that remains our overarching goal and what we view as really the long-term solution for Afghanistan to achieve peace and stability. But I don’t have an assessment of what the latest development might mean for prospects, but we continue to encourage those efforts,” he said.

This comes as a new Taliban faction has emerged in Afghanistan, promising to fight rival Taliban groups as well as foreign forces in the country.