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ISIS affiliate in Southern and Central Asia, the Islamic State – Khorasan Province (ISIS-K), revealed that its cells carried out 34 operations in Afghanistan between October 7 and November 2.
In an infographic released on November 5, the terrorist group’s al-Nabaa newspaper said that the operations included ten attacks with improvised explosive devices, 18 assassinations, three raids, three suicide attacks, eight attacks on vehicles and an attack on an electricity tower.
ISIS-K claimed that the operations left 644 people dead or wounded, including 129 fighters and eight commanders of the Taliban, six Afghan and Pakistani officials as well as 501 Shiite civilians.
The terrorist group’s deadliest attacks targeted mosques of the Afghan Hazera Shiite minority in the northern city of Kunduz on October 8 and the southern city of Kandahar on October 15. Around 100 people were killed in the two suicide attacks.
ISIS-K also killed Taliban military commander Hamdullah Mokhlis and 18 other people in a complex attack that targeted Sardar Daud Khan Hospital in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on November 2.
The Taliban takeover the followed the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan in August provided ISIS-K with the opportunity to scale-up its operations in the war-torn country. The terrorist group seized this opportunity.
Currently, ISIS-K is the biggest challenge facing the Taliban’s newly-installed regime in Afghanistan which is struggling to gain international recognition.
