KABUL, Afghanistan\u00a0\u2014 The Islamic State\u00a0group\u00a0presence in Afghanistan is directly linked to the\u00a0parent organization in Iraq and Syria, the U.S. Army general in charge of American and NATO troops in Afghanistan said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gen. John Nicholson, speaking to The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday, says IS loyalists in Afghanistan have financial, communications and strategic connections with the main IS leadership based in a self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This franchise of Daesh is connected to the\u00a0parent\u00a0organization,” he said, using a common alternative acronym for the Islamic State\u00a0group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
“They have applied for membership, they have been accepted, they had to meet certain tests, they have been publicized in Dabiq,” the IS magazine, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IS bases in the eastern province of Nagharhar, which borders Pakistan, are currently being targeted by an Afghan military offensive, backed by U.S. troops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The offensive, part of the Afghan army’s Operation Shafaq, began on Saturday, hours after the IS\u00a0groupclaimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack in the capital Kabul that killed around 80 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The attack targeted ethnic Hazaras, who are also Shiite Muslims \u2014 considered apostates by IS \u2014 who were demonstrating to demand that a regional electrical project to be rerouted through their province of Bamiyan to boost economic growth in the impoverished central highlands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than 200 people were wounded in the worst attack in Kabul since the Taliban’s insurgency began in 2001. It was also the first major attack in the city claimed by IS, raising concerns about their strength and capabilities in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Afghan security forces, backed by U.S. air strikes, have been targeting IS in their Nangahar holdouts for several months. Nicholson said that the nine or 10 districts where they had a significant presence had been reduced to three ahead of the current offensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Now, he said, they were retreating out of the Kot valley toward the south. Once the region was cleared, he said, civilian forces such as the Afghan Local Police would move in to make sure there was no return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Afghanistan branch of IS is often referred to as Islamic State-Khorasan Province, a reference to a historic region that included parts of what are now Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nicholson said a “significant proportion, a majority of fighters” with IS in Afghanistan come from Pakistan’s Orokzai agency, over the border from Nangarhar, and are former members of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, also known as the Pakistani Talban.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Islamic State\u00a0group\u00a0presence in Afghanistan is directly linked to the\u00a0parent organization in Iraq and Syria, the U.S. Army general in charge of American and NATO troops in Afghanistan said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":96347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1908],"class_list":["post-99417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"WEIN2DBWFBHYBISZ4IAG4GT5LM","arc_canonical_url":"\/2016\/07\/27\/afghanistan-isis-presence-linked-to-parent-group-in-iraq-syria-general-says\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n