Abdulqadr Mumin, the leader of the small cadre of Islamic State fighters in the East African nation, defected from Shabaab late last year. He is said to kidnap and indoctrinate young Somali boys to bolster his ranks.
Abu Dher al Barmi, the former mufti of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan who defected in 2014, apologized for joining the Islamic State and encouraged others who joined the organization to leave it for other jihadist groups.
The US military continues to extol Afghan security forces as they continue to lose ground to the Taliban. In the last 24 hours, the district of Jani Khel in Paktia fell to the Taliban.
A senior Afghan official said that more than 80 percent of Helmand is Taliban controlled, and in many cases government forces are confined to district centers.
The Taliban continue to bring disaffected leaders back into the fold. Anwar ul Haq Mujahid, the commander of the Tora Bora Military Front and the son of an influential Taliban leader who was instrumental in welcoming Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan after al Qaeda was ejected from Sudan in 1996, has sworn allegiance to the Taliban’s new emir.
The Taliban is sustaining offensive operations through Afghanistan as Afghan security forces, backed by US airpower and special forces, continue to struggle with containing the jihadist group.
The Taliban continue to bring recalcitrant leaders back into the fold. The Dadullah family and commanders from the Mullah Dadullah Front, a jihadist faction with close ties to al Qaeda, rejoined the Taliban and swore allegiance to its emir, Mullah Haibatullah.
The US military claimed that Khan’s death and the operation in Nangarhar will hurt the group’s operations in Afghanistan. However the Islamic State’s inability to form alliances with the established jihadist groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan has led to its isolation.
The presence of an al Qaeda camp in South Waziristan as late as 2013 contradicts claims by the Pakistani military that the tribal agency was secured after launching an offensive against the Movement of the Taliban and allied groups, including al Qaeda, in 2009.
Mullah Baz Mohammad, who served as a deputy to the leader of a rival breakaway faction, and a military commander in Uruzgan reunited with the Taliban and swore allegiance to its emir.
A light US footprint in Afghanistan has led to Taliban gains throughout the country. The Taliban has surrounded Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand.
A senior Afghan military officer claimed that his forces killed Hafiz Saeed Khan, the emir for the Islamic State’s Khorasan province, during an ongoing military operation in the eastern province of Nangarhar. However Khan’s death cannot be independently confirmed.
While the competing claims cannot be verified, both groups are capable of executing the mass-casualty suicide attack in Quetta.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has been behind numerous deadly attacks inside Pakistan and is closely allied with the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda. In 2014 it celebrated al Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks on the US and said it would fight until an Islamic caliphate “is established in every nook and corner of the world,” it concluded.
The US military justified the strikes by noting that AQAP remains a “significant threat” to the United States and its allies.
The Taliban, via one of its official spokesmen, quickly issued a denial that its shadow governor and military commander in Helmand were killed in an airstrike. The Afghan government has a spotty track record when reporting on the deaths of Taliban commanders.
According to the Amaq News Agency, two “fighters of the Islamic State” executed the attack on the Hazara protesters in Afghanistan’s capital.
The Taliban continues to make gains on the battlefield. A district in Kunduz province fell to the Taliban after four days of fighting.
Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost, who left the Islamic State late last year, claimed that Khorasan province became a tool of “regional intelligence agencies and started torturing innocent people.” He described the emir of Khorasan province as “illiterate” for approving attacks on civilians.
The radical Shia cleric responded to the US military deployment of an additional 560 troops to aid in the fight against the Islamic State by threatening to attack them.
The US killed Khalifa Umar Mansour, the commander of the Tariq Gidar Group who was responsible for attacks on Pakistani schools, in an airstrike in Afghanistan. The US listed his Taliban faction as a terrorist organization less than two months ago.
The Iraqi military’s takeover of Qayyarah Airfiled West, or Q-West, coincided with US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter’s visit to Iraq and the announcement that an additional 560 US troops will be deployed to aid in the Mosul offensive.
Bill Roggio testifies before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, as well as the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific. The hearing is titled, “Pakistan: Friend or Foe in the Fight Against Terrorism?”
Pakistan called the killing of Burhan Wani by Indian troops “deplorable and condemnable,” despite the fact that he was a known terrorist recruiter and military commander. This condemnation highlights Pakistan’s support for terrorist groups throughout the region.
Despite admitting to a worsening security situation, Obama will withdraw 1,400 US troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year.
The Taliban’s condemnation is not surprising as it has relied on Saudi Arabia as a source for fundraising and other support to fuel the Afghan insurgency.
ODNI released some information on counterterrorism raids as part of an effort to provide more transparency on these operations. US intelligence claims that between 2,372 to 2,581 combatants and between 64 to 116 civilians were killed in 473 strikes in areas outside of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria since President Obama took office.
The US government and intelligence services have consistently underestimated the strength of AQIS, which is an official branch of al Qaeda that is based in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.
At least 27 people are reported to have been killed in the twin bombings. The second suicide bomber targeted emergency personnel as they rendered aid to the victims of the first blast.
Taken on its own, the Ministry of Interior’s data on the number of districts ruled by the Taliban indicates that the security situation has worsened since the last time the government such disclosed information. The Long War Journal estimates that 39 districts are under Taliban control.