The Taliban and Islamic State fighters have regularly clashed since the latter gained a foothold in eastern Afghanistan in 2015, as the two vie for supremacy in the war- torn country.<\/p>\n
The Taliban and Islamic State group jointly massacred dozens of civilians in an Afghan village, officials said today, highlighting rare co-operation between the insurgents that could increase the strain on Afghanistan\u2019s beleaguered security forces.<\/p>\n
The fighters killed more than 50 men, women and children in the remote Sayad district of northern Sar-e Pul province on Saturday after overrunning the Afghan Local Police (ALP) – a government-backed militia – in a 48-hour battle, according to local officials.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a joint operation by Daesh (IS) and Taliban fighters. They had recruited forces from other provinces of the country and attacked Mirzawalang village,\u201d Zabihullah Amani, a spokesman for the provincial governor, told AFP.<\/p>\n
The spokesman alleged that dozens of Taliban and IS group fighters under the command of Sher Mohammad Ghazanfar, a local Taliban commander who Amani claims pledged allegiance to IS, launched a co-ordinated attack on the area on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fighters overran the area and it led to the massacre of innocent and defenceless civilians,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Most of those killed were shot but some were beheaded, Amani said.<\/p>\n
Verifying information from poor, mountainous areas of Afghanistan made inaccessible by fighting and with patchy communications is difficult, and AFP was not able to access the village.<\/p>\n
Mohammad Noor Rahmani, head of Sar-e-Pul\u2019s provincial council, said 44 of the 50 victims were believed to be civilians, with the ALP militia also suffering casualties.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not the final toll. It might change because the area is inaccessible and no telephone networks are working to get an update,\u201d he told AFP.<\/p>\n
The Taliban and Islamic State fighters have regularly clashed since the latter gained a foothold in eastern Afghanistan in 2015, as the two vie for supremacy in the war- torn country.<\/p>\n
An Afghan security source told AFP there had been around three incidents in the past where fighters from both groups had teamed up to deal a blow to Afghan forces in certain areas.<\/p>\n
Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, confirmed to AFP that it had captured Mirzawalang village but said it had done so alone. It also denied allegations it had killed civilians.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an independent operation by our mujahideen forces. There is no cooperation with the Islamic State on the operation,\u201d said the spokesman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Taliban and Islamic State fighters have regularly clashed since the latter gained a foothold in eastern Afghanistan in 2015, as the two vie for supremacy in the war- torn country. The Taliban and Islamic State group jointly massacred dozens of civilians in an Afghan village, officials said today, highlighting rare co-operation between the insurgents […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1572,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1571"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1573,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571\/revisions\/1573"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}