Fierce fighting has been continuing in parts of the restive Helmand province as 32 more Taliban fighters have been killed in the beleaguered province over the past 24 hours, spokesman for provincial government Omar Zawak said Monday.

“A total of 32 Taliban rebels including three commanders have been killed in Nawa, Garmsir and Nad Ali districts of Helmand province over the past 24 hours,” Zawak told reporters here.

According to the official, fighting has been continuing in parts of the restive province to eliminate Taliban militants and ensure lasting peace there.

The official, however, avoided commenting on the possible casualties of security forces over the period.

Up to 25 militants had been killed in air strikes on Saturday night.

Helmand with Lashkar Gah as its capital 555 km south of national capital Kabul city has been regarded as Taliban hotbed in the conflict-hit Afghanistan.

Meantime, a press release of 205 Miwand Corps stationed in southern region released here Monday said that six Taliban militants had been killed in their bomb blast.

According to the press release, six militants were planting mine on road in Chah-e-Anjir district on Sunday night to target security forces convoy but the device exploded accidentally killing all the six on the spot.

The volatile Helmand province has been the scene of Taliban-led increasing militancy over the past few years. Fighting in the restive province has heightened over the past couple of months after Taliban insurgents intensified operations to overrun provincial capital Lashkar Gah, a key city in southern region.

To consolidate their positions, Taliban militants blocked the road linking Lashkar Gah to the neighboring Kandahar province.

However, Kandahar police chief General Abdul Razeq has said that the road linking Kandahar to Lashkar Gah was reopened over weekend and reinforcement can reach Helmand.

Meantime, a security official in Helmand on the condition of anonymity told Xinhua on Monday that Taliban has mined the road linking Kandahar to Helmand provincial capital Lashkar Gah and it is risky to drive on the battered road.

An Afghan soldier serving in Lashkar Gah, on the condition of anonymity told Xinhua on Monday that air strikes conducted by the U.S.-led coalition forces has stopped Taliban advances in Nad Ali, Nawa and Garmsir districts over the past one week, otherwise the militants might have tightened their grip.

According to the soldier, the government suffered casualties in Garmsir district on Sunday. Meantime, provincial government spokesman Omar Zawak spurned the report, saying situation is under control in Garmsir and other parts of the volatile province.

xinhuanet.com

alalam.ir

At least 11 soldiers of the Afghan National Army (ANA) forces and 92 militants were killed amid soaring violence across the country, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) said Saturday.

According to a statement by MoD, the latest casualties to the Afghan army and the anti-government armed militants were incurred in the past 24 hours in various provinces of the country.

The statement further added that the operations were conducted with the support of the artillery unitys of the Afghan army and the Afghan Air Force.

At least 40 of the militants were killed in Khoshamand Zerok and Khairkot districts of Paktiak province and at least 30 others including 9 militants were killed in Samkanai and Janikhel districts of Paktia province, MoD said.

MoD in its statement also added that 17 militants were killed during a separate operation in Dahana-e-Ghori district of Baghlan and 5 more militants were killed in separate operations conducted in Laghman and Faryab provinces.

At least 11 soldiers of the Afghan National Army (ANA) forces also lost their lives during the same operations, MoD said, although there are no reports regarding the casualties of the security personnel belonging to other security institutions, including the Afghan National Police (ANP) forces.

The anti-government armed militant groups including the Taliban insurgents have not commented regarding the reports so far.

khaama.com

An estimated 300 ISIS fighters were killed in a joint Afghan-U.S. operation launched about two weeks ago, NATO’s top commander in Afghanistan said Wednesday.

Gen. John Nicholson said the offensive in the eastern province of Nangarhar was part of U.S. operations to degrade the capabilities of ISIS wherever it raised its head, whether in Iraq and Syria or in Afghanistan.

The group, believed to be confined to three or four of the more than 400 districts in Afghanistan, last month claimed responsibility for bombing a demonstration by the Shiite Hazara minority in the capital, Kabul, in which at least 80 people were killed.

Nicholson, in New Delhi for talks with the Indian military which has provided training and some arms to Afghanistan, said Afghan forces supported by the United States had just carried out a counterterrorism operation against ISIS.

“They killed a number of top leaders of the organization and up to 300 of their fighters,” he told reporters.

“Obviously it’s difficult to get an exact count, but what this amounts to is about 25 percent of the organization at least, and so this represents a severe setback for them.”

ISIS first appeared in Afghanistan at the beginning of 2015, and had about 3,000 fighters at the height of the movement, many of them former members of militant groups such as the Pakistani Taliban and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

Previously considered a much smaller threat than its enemy, the Taliban, ISIS demonstrated how dangerous it could be with last month’s bomb attack in Kabul.

On Tuesday, another U.S. military official said American soldiers helping Afghan troops fight ISIS in Nangarhar were forced to abandon equipment and weapons when their position came under fire.

nbcnews.com/

Authorities in Bangladesh’s capital said that they have arrested six suspected members of a banned Islamist group blamed for recent deadly attacks, including one last month that killed 20 people.

The arrests were made in separate overnight raids in Dhaka, said Mufti Mahmud Khan, spokesman for the Rapid Action Battalion elite anti-crime force. He said the suspects belong to the outlawed group Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh.

The group is blamed for the July 1 attack on a restaurant in Dhaka that killed 20 people, including 17 foreigners. It also is blamed for a July 7 attack on a major Eid prayer gathering north of Dhaka that left four people dead, including two police officers.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the restaurant attack, but authorities have denied that, saying it was the act of Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh, and that the IS has no presence in the Muslim-majority country.

Khan said the arrested suspects told authorities during interrogation that they were preparing for another attack in Dhaka. During the raids, security officers recovered two pistols, five grenades, a dozen small bombs, 13 detonators, four meat cleavers, five knives and bomb-making materials, he said.

One of the arrested men, Mustafizur Rahman, was identified by officials at a news conference as the administrator of a website run by Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh that was used to promote radical ideas.

Rahman also was said to be involved with Dawatul Islam Bangladesh, a group that allegedly recruits members for JMB and is accused of being involved in at least 11 recent attacks, including the restaurant attack.

ap.org

Police in Afghanistan say a suicide attack in a crowded market in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif has killed at least one person and wounded more than a dozen.

Munir Ahmad Farhad, the provincial governor’s spokesman, said the attacker had explosives strapped to his body.

No group has immediately claimed responsibility for the August 9 attack.

Taliban insurgents have intensified attacks across the country in their efforts to overthrow the Kabul government.

However, Mazar-i-Sharif, an important commercial center near the border with Uzbekistan, has generally been spared the violence.

The UN mission in Afghanistan says more than 1,000 civilians have been killed in the first half of this year, most of them by the insurgency, now in its 15th year.

rferl.org

Up to 21 militants loyal to the Islamic State (IS) were killed in Achin district of Afghanistan‘s eastern Nangarhar province over the past 24 hours, Interior Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

According to the statement, 13 more IS fighters were wounded and several hideouts of the armed outfit destroyed during the operations.

IS outfit has yet to make comments on the report.

Achin and the neighboring Kot district have been regarded as the hotbed of IS militants in the eastern part of Afghanistan.

Operations Government forces against IS have been continuing over the past several months in the mountainous districts along the border with Pakistan‘s tribal areas but the ultra-extremist militant group is still active in the area.

xinhuanet.com

At least 13 people were killed and 15 got injured on Friday when suspected militants opened fire at a busy market in Kokrajhar town in Assam, police said.

Police said a group of militants swooped down on Balajan Tinali market this afternoon and opened fire in the marketplace.

The militants came in an auto and opened fire in the busy market area. A large number of people had gathered at the weekly market. Kokrajhar is the capital town of Bodoland. The NIA Guwahati is likely to send a team soon. Combing operations are now underway. This is the first major terror attack since the BJP came to power in Assam.

AK-47 rifles were recovered from the place.

Rajnath Singh said that the Home Ministry is closely monitoring the situation and the Centre has assured all possible help.

The militants first lobbed around three grenades and then fired at the crowd.
The area has been cordoned off by police and army security personnel and operations have been launched as the militants are suspected to be hiding in nearby buildings.

Our government will take stern action against these extremist outfits, said Assam CM Sarbananda Sonowal.

Assam Director General of Police Mukesh Sahay said, “There has been an incident of firing. The security forces have reacted to it and one suspected militant as been reportedly neutralised. We have launched an intensive operation.”

The attackers are believed to be part of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland, a Christian separatist group that has been classified as a terror group by India, according to P K Bhagwati, deputy police commander.

“This attack is intended to destabilise peace in Assam,” said Himanta Biswa Sarma, the state’s finance and health minister. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack.

business-standard.com

Taliban militants attacked foreign tourists escorted by an Afghan army convoy in the western province of Herat on Thursday, officials said, with a military spokesman saying at least six people were wounded.

The Taliban have officially not claimed responsibility so far for the attack and the nationality of the tourists was not immediately known.

“The convoy was ambushed by the Taliban in Chesht-e-Sharif district. The tourists were on their way to Herat from Bamiyan and Ghor provinces,” said Jilani Farhad, the spokesman for Herat’s governor.

Military spokesman Najibullah Najibi said the ambush left at least five foreign tourists and their Afghan driver wounded, adding that they were being escorted to Herat city.

The attack comes as Taliban militants intensify their annual summer offensive after a brief lull during the holy fasting month of Ramadan, which ended in early July.

Highways in Afghanistan passing through insurgency-prone areas have become exceedingly dangerous, with the Taliban and other armed groups frequently kidnapping or killing travellers.

france24.com

Bangladesh Police is looking for two people identified as the brains behind the recent attacks carried out in a city restaurant that caused 28 deaths and in a Muslim religious celebration.

During a press conference, Inspector General of Police A.K.M. Shahidul Hoque announced the reward of over $ 25,000 USD for information allowing the capture of former officier Syed Ziaul Haq and Canadian citizen of Bangladeshi origin Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury.

Although both attacks were claimed by the Islamic State (IS), Hoque actually insisted that its authors were members of national radical groups, such as Jamaatul Mujaheedin Bangladesh (JMB) and Bangla Ansarullah.

Chowdhury is considered by the authorities one of the ringleaders of a new branch of JMB, closely linked to IS.

Hoque added that he was unaware if the extremist is currently in Bangladesh, amid reports about his transfer to India, where he is also wanted.

plenglish.com