Media reports says Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban said on June 11 that their security forces had killed at least eight key militants of the self-proclaimed Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K) and captured three others.
Taliban forces reportedly conducted an afternoon raid against an ISIS-K base in Taloqan, the capital of Takhar province, and eliminated what local officials told Afghan state-run media was a "funding, equipping and training center" of the terrorist group.
Khaama Press says Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid late Saturday confirmed the military action, saying the special operation was carried out to target an ISIS training center in Taloqan, and that eight ISIS militants were killed in the operation, including the group’s senior commander, Yunus Uzbekistani.
At the same time, Taliban forces are said to have clashed in Taloqan, while local sources in Takhar province claim an armed clash between supporters of Mawlawi Qadir Hami and other Taliban members.
During the clashes, civilians were also wounded, and a lumber yard was set ablaze, according to sources in the province, according to Khaama Press.
City residents said the security operation had temporarily blocked the main highway linking Taloqan to the neighboring province, Badakhshan. Both Afghan provinces are on the country’s border with Tajikistan.
Growing ISIS-K activities in Afghan border areas have worried Tajikistan and other Central Asian neighbors.
Recall, ISIS-K last month claimed responsibility for firing rockets into Tajikistan from the Khwaja Ghar district in Takhar, but no casualties were reported.
For their part, Tajik authorities said that bullets, not rockets, landed in Tajikistan that were fired accidentally during what they claimed was a firefight between Taliban forces and ISIS-K militants on the Afghan side of the border.
ISIS-K has increased attacks in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power from the Western-backed government last August, days before the final U.S.-led foreign troops withdrew from the country.
The militant violence has killed and injured hundreds of people, mostly members of the Afghan minority Shiite Muslim community.
The United Nations has warned that ISIS-K’s objective “remains to challenge the Taliban by waging a war that fits into the border Daesh (an acronym of ISIS's Arabic name al-Dawlah al-Islamīyah fī l-ʻIrāq wa-sh-Shām) concept of ‘global jihad.’”
