US aims to eliminate Daesh from Afghanistan this year

US aims to eliminate Daesh from Afghanistan this year

May 03, 2017
US Defense Secretary James Mattis, center, and US Army General John Nicholson, second left, commander of US Forces Afghanistan, meet with Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security Director Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, right, and other members of the Afghan delegation at Resolute Support headquarters in Kabul in this April 24, 2017 file photo. — AFP
US Defense Secretary James Mattis, center, and US Army General John Nicholson, second left, commander of US Forces Afghanistan, meet with Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security Director Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, right, and other members of the Afghan delegation at Resolute Support headquarters in Kabul in this April 24, 2017 file photo. — AFP

WASHINGTON — After dropping a monster bomb on its fighters, then targeting its leader, the US military is looking to destroy the Daesh (the so-called IS) group’s Afghan branch before battle-hardened reinforcements arrive from Syria and Iraq.

While US and Kabul government forces have mainly been combatting Taliban fighters since 2001, Daesh’s local offshoot — also known as Daesh-Khorasan, or ISIS-K — has a stronghold in eastern Afghanistan.

First emerging in 2015, ISIS-K overran large parts of Nangarhar and Kunar provinces, near the Pakistan border, but their part in the Afghan conflict had been largely overshadowed by the operations against the Taliban.

Many Americans first heard of Daesh-K last month when the US dropped the “Mother Of All Bombs” on its Nangarhar bastion — an aerial munition that the Pentagon said was the biggest non-nuclear weapon it had ever used in combat.

US and Afghan forces then raided a compound last week close to the site of the bombing, with the Pentagon saying it believed it had killed Daesh-K’s leader Abdul Hasib during the operation.

Captain Bill Salvin, spokesman for US Forces-Afghanistan, said the local Daesh presence peaked at between 2,500 to 3,000 but that defections and recent battlefield losses had reduced their number to a maximum of 800.

“We have a very good chance of destroying them in 2017, making it very clear that when the Daesh fighters are destroyed elsewhere around the globe that this is not the place for you to come to plot your attacks,” Salvin said.

US-backed fighters also appear to have Daesh on the ropes in Syria and Iraq, where an operation to wrest back control of the major northern city of Mosul has been ongoing since October.

But both the military and analysts acknowledge there is a danger of Daesh fighters heading to Afghanistan if they are forced out of Iraq and Syria.

Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, said that while Daesh should ultimately be defeated in Afghanistan, the Pentagon’s timeline may be overly optimistic.

A definitive victory could take “a long time due, partly (due) to the proximity of Pakistan as well as the possible flow of fighters” from the Middle East as the “group loses sanctuaries there,” O’Hanlon said.

The Taliban, which first emerged in the mid-1990s in southern Afghanistan, managed to conquer most of the country before its 2001 ouster with the help of a range of foreign jihadists, including Pakistanis, Saudis and Chechens.

Analysts say that as well as Afghans, Daesh-K includes disaffected Pakistani and Uzbek militants among its ranks who used to fight for the Taliban.

It first emerged as a significant player in Afghanistan in early 2015 when its fighters overran the Taliban in parts of the east and has subsequently claimed responsibility for a string of bomb attacks. — AFP


May 03, 2017
HIGHLIGHTS