ISIS Beheads 15 Of Its Own Fighters In Afghanistan
The
Islamic State militant group (ISIS) beheaded more than a dozen of its
own fighters in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, according to officials.
The
killings happened in the eastern province of Nangarhar, where ISIS has
grown in influence and jostled with the country’s largest militant
group, the Taliban.
Attaullah
Khogyani, the provincial governor's spokesman, told Reuters that the
killings took place in the Surkh Ab bazaar of Achin district.
ISIS
made no official claim to have killed its own members, and Afghan
authorities provided no additional details about the ISIS beheading of
its own fighters, or the context of the incident.
It
has been reported previously that ISIS has executed its own fighters in
territory under its control, in parts of eastern Syria and northern
Iraq, largely after they tried to escape or were accused of working with
enemy forces.
The
group, which continues to suffer battlefield defeats in Iraq and Syria,
has started to grow in Afghanistan, capitalizing on the lawless nature
of a country wracked by years of conflict following the 2001 invasion by
U.S. and Western forces seeking to overthrow the Taliban.
It has formed an affiliate known as Khorasan Province, which refers to
an ancient province that dissected the modern Afghan-Pakistan border.
The U.S. is targeting the group in airstrikes, but the majority of those
are targeting the Taliban.
President
Donald Trump's administration is accelerating its airstrike campaign in
Afghanistan as part of his new strategy of expansion in the country.
The U.S. military has almost tripled the amount of bombs it has dropped
in the country this year compared to the previous year: As of October
31, the air force had dropped 3,554 bombs in Afghanistan against the
Taliban, almost three times the 1,337 in 2016 and nearly four times the
947 in 2015.
Trump
has also given the military authority to target Taliban drug labs in
Afghanistan. The Pentagon believes the Taliban makes more than $200
million annually from opium production, cultivating poppies in the
central Asian country to drive revenue for its insurgency against the
Afghan government.
On
the same day as the beheading, a suicide bomber killed eight people in
Jalalabad. They were part of a gathering calling for the reinstatement
of a sacked police commander. No group has claimed responsibility.
Source: Newsweek
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