The Taliban claimed that 338 security personnel and government officials defected to the jihadist group in the district of Waygal, which is in the embattled northeastern province of Nuristan.
The Taliban issued a statement denying that it uses children in its paramilitary and suicide operations. The denial is contradicted by the group’s own propaganda, including a recent video that showed a young boy standing next to a commander as he addressed his suicide attack unit. The boy was dressed in military fatigues and armed with an assault rifle.
The Muaskar ul Fida is likely loyal to the Haqqani Network, an al Qaeda-linked Taliban group that is backed by Pakistan’s military and intelligence establishment.
While western officials still seek to negotiate with the Afghan Taliban, the group continues to support attacks in Western countries. The Taliban said France’s “colonial policy” justified the murders in Paris.
The Islamic State released a photograph of the bomb as well as what it claims are images of passports of Russians who were killed in the explosion and subsequent crash, in issue number 12 of its English language magazine, Dabiq.
A woman detonated her vest as French special police raided an Islamic State safe house in a Paris suburb. Police were searching for Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian national who is suspected of plotting the Nov. 13 suicide assault that killed at least 129 people in the French capital. Abaaoud was killed during the raid.
The strikes that targeted “Jihadi John” and Abu Nabil should serve as a reminder that 14 years after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, the military and intelligence establishment remain hyper focused on targeting individuals in the hopes of causing the collapse of jihadist groups.
Sixty-five Afghan soldiers and several of their officers laid down their weapons and surrendered to the Taliban in the embattled district of Sangin in the southern province of Helmand.
Mullah Abdul Manan Niazi, the deputy leader of the so-called “High Council of Afghanistan Islamic Emirate,” was accused by Human Rights Watch of inciting and supporting the murder of thousands of Afghans, mostly from the minority Shiite Hazara sect, after the Taliban seized Mazar-i-Sharif in August 1998. He also sheltered Khairullah Said Wali Khairkhwa, one of five dangerous al Qaeda-linked Taliban leaders who were exchanged for US soldier Bowe Bergdahl.
At least 80 fighters from both sides are reported to have been killed during clashes between fighters loyal to Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour and those from Mullah Mohammad Rasul’s dissident Taliban faction in Zabul province.
A brigadier general and a colonel from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) were killed while fighting jihadists and rebels. Nine other IRGC members, including two lower-level officers, were also killed in Syria over the past three weeks.
“People such as these you do not hear a sound from them, they work in silence and leave in silence,” a prominent jihadist said of Sufyan al Maghribi, al Qaeda’s former military emir for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Maghribi was also a frequent contributor to Vanguards of Khorasan, al Qaeda’s magazine, under the nom de guerre Abu Isam al Andalusi.
The US is thought to have killed Bilal al Tayibin, an Arab al Qaeda “key leader,” in an airstrike on the evening of Oct. 29 in Darin in Kunar’s Ghaziabad district. Two of Tayibin’s Afghan bodyguards are also said to have been killed in the attack.
Sayyid al Shuhada said it would “strike and destroy” Saudi interests, not just in Iraq, but inside the kingdom. The militia, which operates as part of the Iraqi government, Iran, and the US-backed Popular Mobilization Committee, is led by Abu Mustafa al Sheibani, a dangerous commander who is listed by the US as a global terrorist.
“Hizb-i-Islami neither has relations with the Islamic State, or any commitment to the group, nor has it announced any support of that group,” Gulbuddin Hekmatyar said in mid-October.
The jihadist group overran the district center of Darqad in Takhar province, but lost control of Dasht-i-Archi in Kunduz and Ghormach in Faryab.
The Taliban continues to press its offensive in southern Afghanistan and is reported to have advanced within miles of the city of Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Helmand.
The military’s claim that the US troops who participated in the operation were military advisers and not engaged in a combat mission is implausible, given the involvement of Delta Force operators. One US soldier was killed.
The Afghan Taliban claimed it overran the district center of Ghoryan in the western province of Herat. Afghan forces later retook the district. Thirteen districts have fallen to the jihadist group in the past several weeks.
Torek Agha is “a long-standing Taliban member [who] has been central to spearheading brutal military attacks and raising millions of dollars to support the Taliban’s ruthless acts of terrorism,” Treasury stated.
The jihadist group continues to fight for control of the northwestern Afghan province of Faryab, where two other districts fell to the Taliban over the past 10 days.
Jalaluddin, the former mufti for Khorasan Province, rose thought the jihadist ranks in the Afghan-Pakistan region and was mentored by Sheikh Aminullah, an influential Taliban leader and al Qaeda facilitator, before defecting to the Islamic State. He taught at the Ganj Madrassa, which is listed by the US as a terrorist facility.
The district of Bala Buluk fell to the jihadist group after more than a week of fighting. The fate of dozens of policemen who were surrounded for days is unknown.
Photographs show the notorious Qods Force commander addressing Iranian officers and Hezbollah forces in Latakia. Iran is reported to have deployed significant forces, estimated at thousands of troops, to support the Assad regime’s offensive in northwestern Syria.
The Taliban control or contest a belt of districts in the south spanning from Farah to Helmand, Uruzgan, and now Kandahar, and may use this to threaten Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Helmand, or Kandahar city.
The Iraqi military claimed it targeted Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the emir of the Islamic State, as he was traveling to meet with other commanders of his organization at a location on the border with Syria. The fate of Baghdadi, who has been reported killed or wounded several times in the past, is unknown.
Brigadier General Hossein Hamedani is the third senior Iraqi military adviser who has been killed in the Syrian-Iraqi theater since the beginning of the year.
The designations include three jihadists from the Russian Caucasus, including Omar al Shishani’s deputy and a Turkey-based “overseas emissary.” A recruiter from the United Kingdom was also designated.
Qari Fasihuddin, the “Jihadi-in charge” of Badakhshan, is the second shadow governor to deny reports that he was killed in a US airstrike since the Taliban took control of Kunduz and several districts in the Afghan north.
Wardoj and Baharak are the latest districst to fall to the Taliban since the provincial capital of Kunduz was overrun on Sept. 28. The Taliban has seized control of 10 districts in five provinces.