Dana White also denied the Taliban has the initiative and touted the fact that all six Afghan Army corps are now on the offensive as a sign of success. Except all six army corps have been on the offensive since last fall, and security has continued to deteriorate.
The Ministry of Defense identified six of the seven provincial centers that are threatened by the Taliban as Farah City, Faizabad in Badakhshan, Tarin Kot in Uruzgan, Kunduz City, Maimana in Faryab, and Pul-i-Khumri in Baghlan. The seventh city is likely Ghazni City or Lashkar Gah.
The Taliban appears to maintain the initiative throughout Afghanistan, while the Afghan military is forced to react to Taliban offensives, such as the latest incursion into Farah City.
Months after killing four US Special Forces soldiers, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara has been designated as a terrorist group by the US government. Its leader, Abu Walid al Sahrawi, was also designated today.
Taliban claimed it took control of two districts, one in Badghis province and another in Ghazni. The Taliban has overrun five districts since it announced the beginning of its 2018 offensive.
Hazrat Abbas served as a leader for both al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent and the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. AQIS was formed to unite disparate jihadist factions to fight under the banner of the Afghan Taliban.
Video evidence emerging from the city shows Taliban fighters patrolling areas of the city, seizing weapons, and in control of government buildings.
The assault on Farah City should put to rest claims by the US military that the Taliban is desperate and losing ground in Afghanistan. Farah has been under threat for months.
At least nine people were killed and more than 30 more were wounded in the latest attack by the Islamic State’s branch in Afghanistan.
Al Qaeda has released a message from its leader, Ayman al Zawahiri, that is timed to coincide with the Trump administration’s relocation of the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Zawahiri notes that the decision caused a “big uproar,” but he reminds listeners that Tel Aviv is also supposedly Muslim land. He calls for jihad to uproot the entire international system led by the US and the UN.
The Islamic State’s Amaq News Agency has released a video purportedly showing the young man who attacked several people with a knife in Paris yesterday. FDD’s Long War Journal cannot independently verify that the person shown was responsible for the knife attacks. However, the footage is similar to previous videos released by Amaq after a series of small-scale attacks in Europe since mid-2016.
According to authorities, an ISIS-linked family carried out suicide bombings at three churches in the Indonesian city of Surabaya earlier today. The bombings came just days after other ISIS-affiliated militants conducted a prison riot south of Jakarta. ISIS has long targeted Christians, among many others. The group previously ruled that suicide attacks aimed at churches were an acceptable way to attain “closeness to Allah.”
Since late April, Shabaab has released a series of videos emphasizing its place in al Qaeda’s global network. Two of the videos were recorded by the group’s emir, Abu Ubaydah Ahmad Umar, a normally reclusive figure. Abu Ubaydah refers to the Taliban’s emir as the “Commander of the Faithful” and Ayman al Zawahiri as the “father-emir” while addressing the mujahideen in Syria and Yemen.
Two busy markets in southern Somalia were targeted by deadly explosions this week, which left at least 14 people dead and many others wounded.
At least 42 Afghan police and soldiers were killed during Taliban attacks in the troubled district of Bala Buluk in Farah province. Security in Farah remains tenuous.
The Islamic State claims that its “soldiers” were responsible for a prison riot south of Jakarta, Indonesia yesterday. A police spokesman was quick to dismiss the group’s statements, images and a video purportedly shot at the scene. Instead, he blamed the clash on a fight over food.
The Islamic State has claimed several attacks inside Somalia in the past month, further outpacing the past two years in claimed attacks in the country. While the Islamic State has had a difficult time establishing a foothold inside the country, its claimed operations paints a picture of its areas of operation and types of operations it conducts.
Resolute Support has classified the the capital of Ghazni province as government control, yet it is clearly contested, and has been for some time. In Ghazni city, the Taliban collects taxes, dispenses justice, kills security personnel, and lives openly in one neighborhood.
The Taliban overran the district of Tala Wa Barfak in the northern Afghan provinces of Baghlan. Two others have been seized by the Taliban in the past two weeks.
Since late April, the Islamic State has claimed a string of operations targeting elections in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. The group’s spokesman, Abu al-Hasan al-Muhajir, threatened Iraq’s upcoming election on May 12 and the jihadists are carrying out operations accordingly.
Since mid-April, the Islamic State and the Assad regime have been engaged in an intense battle in the southern neighborhoods of Damascus. ISIS claims to have killed or wounded hundreds of Assad’s soldiers, but its figures cannot be independently verified. Meanwhile, the so-called caliphate continues to fight the Syrian government and its allies in other areas as well, including in eastern Syria.
The Taliban is neither “desperate” nor is it “losing ground” in Afghanistan. Pollyanish press briefings cannot paper over the fact that things are currently not going well.
Afghan forces recaptured Kohistan district in the remote northern province of Badakhshan two days after it fell to the Taliban.
Intercommunal eye for an eye killings have been increasing in the past week with dozens of Tuaregs and Fulani being killed on both sides of the Mali-Niger border. The massacres come in the backdrop of ongoing counterterrorism operations against the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara.
The Taliban overran the district of Kohistan in the remote northeastern province of Badakhshan last evening after laying siege to it for several days.
In March, a state-affiliated Iranian media outlets published a speech by Lebanese Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah that it shouldn’t have. The speech, which was quickly retracted, was meant for internal distribution, thus making it a valuable document.
Two districts, one in Paktika and another in Badakhshan, that were previously assessed by Resolute Support as influenced by the government of Afghanistan are now at risk.
Yesterday’s suicide bombing continues to prove the residual threat of jihadist violence in northeastern Nigeria.
Yet again, senior American officials display a stunning level of ignorance about the Islamic State and the Taliban. Elections are antithetical to jihadists’ belief of religious rule.
The Taliban continue to maintain its grip on half of Afghanistan despite US military’s reinvigorated effort to force the group from its strongholds.