Afghanistan Times
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Contrary to impression of certain countries regarding the Islamic States (IS) also called as Daesh, the high-ranking US authorities considering it sever danger to its internal and external interests. The Daesh group in Afghanistan is a “very worrisome” threat to the United States, and US counterterrorism efforts have yet to shrink its extremist ambitions, Head of US Central Command Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie said. “ISIS (Daesh) in Afghanistan certainly has aspirations to attack the United States,” McKenzie said. “It is our clear judgment that as long as we maintain pressure on them it will be hard for them to do that.” McKenzie, with responsibility for managing American military operations across the greater Middle East, spoke in Germany with reporters returning home with him from an eight-day trip that took him to Qatar, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. He also spent two days aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in the North Arabian Sea. He stopped at Germany’s Ramstein air base to refuel his airplane before flying to his headquarters in Florida. Earlier this week, the Associated Press cited US. and Afghan security officials in reporting that the Daesh group in Afghanistan is expanding its footprint, recruiting new fighters and plotting attacks on the United States and other Western countries. McKenzie, a veteran of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, said he believes ISIS in Afghanistan has not expanded its capabilities but remains a big problem. “They are very worrisome to us” in their strongholds in eastern Afghanistan, he said, adding that combat operations have failed to reduce the group’s fighting ranks. Others have said they are thought to number in the thousands. Soon after assassination of Al Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden near to a military installation in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011, certain militant groups emerged mysteriously in Gulf States like Iraq and Syria. Later these militants appeared as Daesh in Afghanistan shortly after the group’s core fighters swept across Syria and Iraq in the summer of 2014, carving out a self-styled Islamic empire in both countries. Ironic to mention that Daesh modus operandi was not different from Al Qaeda affiliated groups, declaring almost of Afghanistan along with parts of Pakistan and certain Central Asian Republics as Khurasan. Later after getting influence and presence in certain parts of Afghanistan like Nangarhar province, these IS militants have broken away all previous records of violence by killing the innocent human beings through worst kind inhuman and immoral ways. As a result of such inhuman acts, the Daesh earned nothing else hater of Afghans. Though the US forces in Afghanistan are combating the Daesh group separately from their mission of advising and assisting Afghan defense forces in their battle against the Taliban but still certain countries and its spy agencies like Pakistan, Iran and others are considering the IS as second birth of Al Qaeda, paving the ways for landing of US in the countries, targeted for missions and later on establishing its influence through violent acts carried out by IS militants. But one thing is very clear that almost top leaders of IS like of Al Qaeda targeted by US drone and jet fighters in eastern Afghanistan. Earlier certain quarters in Pakistan propagating Al Qaeda and its affiliated militant groups as “production of US spy agencies” but all of them have been eliminated through US drones.
