Afghanistan, KABUL, Oct 22 – Taliban security forces have killed six members of the Islamic State group in an overnight operation in the Afghan capital Kabul, a spokesman for the ruling group’s administration said on Saturday.
Islamic State members killed in raid on their hideout have been involved in two major attacks in recent weeks, one on a city mosque and another on a tutoring institute, in which dozens of female students were killed, spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi said. “They were the attackers of Wazir Akbar Khan Mosque and also… Kaaj Institute,” Ahmadi said, adding that one member of the Taliban security forces was killed in the operation.
No group claimed any attack.
An explosion in the women’s section of the Kaaj Institute educational center on 30 September killed 53 people, mostly girls and young women.
On September 23, at least seven people were killed and more than 40 injured in an explosion near a mosque in Wazir Akbar Khan, a heavily fortified neighborhood once home to a “green zone” of embassies and bases of foreign forces.
Since the Taliban took power in 2021, they say they have focused on securing the country after decades of war.
But the capital and other urban areas have been rocked by a series of explosions in recent months and security is deteriorating, according to the UN.
The Afghan branch of the Islamic State, known as the Islamic State of Khorasan, after the region’s old name, are enemies of the Taliban.
Fighters loyal to the Islamic State first appeared in eastern Afghanistan in 2014 and later infiltrated other areas.