At least 7,000 ISIS militants are currently active and about 3,000 are in reserve in Afghanistan, Russian Special Presidential Representative for Afghanistan, Director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Second Asia Department Zamir Kabulov said on March 29.
“We say that there are 7,000 active [ISIS members] plus about 3,000 reserve militants, though the information we possess may be outdated and there may be more of them already,” Kabulov said, according to the state-run news agency TASS.
According to the diplomat, ISIS is creating a network of bases in the country where it recruits new members.
Kabulov said that ISIS expects to get access to drug trafficking in order to gain new sources of revenue after losing their positions in Syria and Iraq.
“They are fighting with the Talibs for business and control over drug laboratories,” he said.
