The Pakistan-based Haqqani Terrorist Network and Taliban’s Quetta Council (Shura) still operate against Afghanistan from their safe havens within the Pakistani soil, National Security Advisor Hanif Atmar said Thursday.

In his meeting with Ali Sait Akin, the Ambassador of Turkey to Afghanistan, Mr. Atmar said the Taliban group and Haqqani network are still based in Pakistan where they are receiving training and act against Afghanistan.

Atmar further added that the government of Pakistan has not important steps to prevent the activities of the two groups in their soil.

He also discussed bilateral relations between Afghanistan and Turkey, Afghan peace process and the Istanbul process, according to the spokesman of the National Security Advisor, Tawab Ghorzang.

Atmar said the government of Afghanistan remains committed regarding the peace process with the militant groups and the government considers peace process from different dimensions.

Meanwhile, Atmar warned that a sustainable peace and stability would be impossible to achieve as long as the militant groups continue to use terrorism as a tool to achieve their political targets.

The Turkish ambassador Mr. Akin reaffirmed his country’s support to Afghanistan, specifically in training of the female police officers and hosting peace talks between the Afghan government and militant groups.

khaama.com

Eight members of a criminal gang that pledged allegiance to Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants were killed in a firefight with the military in the southern Philippines, officials said on Friday (Nov 27).

The hour-long battle took place on Thursday (Nov 26) in Palimbang, a remote town in the south, which is home to the predominantly Catholic nation’s Muslim minority and the scene of decades of conflict.

The bandits were from Ansar al-Khalifa, a small group that declared its support for ISIS in a video circulated on the Internet last year, regional military spokesman Major Filemon Tan said.

The military has said that support for ISIS – which controls vast swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq – in the Philippines was limited to local bandits claiming allegiance to the group.

But it has said there is no evidence showing that such gangs were receiving support from the militants.

The larger Abu Sayyaf group, a United States-listed terrorist organisation that is holding at least four foreign nationals hostage and has demanded millions of dollars in ransom, has likewise pledged allegiance to ISIS.

Tan told AFP that five black flags similar to those used by ISIS fighters were recovered from the bandits after the clash.

Criminal gangs operate kidnap for ransom and extortion activities alongside Muslim and communist separatist campaigns in the restive south.

While the relatively new Ansar al-Khalifa had extorted from businessmen and stolen cattle from farmers, it had no proven links with ISIS national military spokesman Colonel Restituto Padilla said.

“This group is trying to ride on the popularity of the ISIS, but they’re not really ISIS,” he told AFP. “We view them as mere criminal gangs.” Tan said the military was verifying intelligence reports that one of the eight killed was an Indonesian national.

Some three dozen others who involved in the encounter escaped after the fighting, he added.

straitstimes.com

At least two people have been killed by a bomb attack in northwestern Pakistan that targeted a senior government official; however, the minister escaped the apparent assassination attempt.

The remote-controlled bomb attack late on November 26 targeted Akram Khan Durrani, Pakistan’s federal minister for housing and works, as his convoy was traveling in the Bannu district near the town of Bakka Khel Wazir in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province.

Police told RFE/RL at least two employees of his health department were killed.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Durrani is a leader of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) political party and a prominent member of the Muttahaida-Majils-e-Amal religious-political alliance.

He is a key political ally of Fazal-ur-Rehman, the politician and cleric who played a significant role supporting Afghanistan’s Taliban regime during the 1990s.

Durrani also previously served as the chief minister of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province as has been a member of both the federal and provincial legislatures representing his home constituency of Bannu.

rferl.org

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ( ISIS) has claimed responsibility for the attack on a Shia mosque in Bogra, Bangladesh, that left one person dead.

According to the Daily Star, two people have been arrested in connection with the attacks. One was identified as 48-year-old Anwar Hossain, who is a resident of Maghihatra village. The other has been identified as 25-year-old Jewel of Haripur village.

A case has been filed against the unknown gunmen, who stormed the mosque yesterday and opened fire at the people.

Three gunmen stormed the mosque named Masjid Al Hussain at Haripur bus stop in Atmul union and started shooting randomly at 30 to 40 Shia Muslims, according to the locals and police.

70-year-old Hossain was hit in the head. He was later taken to Shaheed Ziaur Rahman Medical College Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.

aninews.in

At least 12 insurgents including the infamous commander of the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group, Khan Said Sajna, were killed in a foreign troops drone strike in eastern Afghanistan, Pakistani media reported Thursday.

Naeem Kochi and Kifayat Kochi were also among the insurgents killed in the drone strike, according to Pakistan’s Geo TV.

In addition, at least 20 insurgents were also injured in the attack.

However, sources confirmed the killing of Khan Said Sajna in the attack.

But TTP has not yet commented on the incident.

This comes after Tuesday night’s drone strike that left at least eight Taliban dead in Nangarhar.

The operation took place in Behsood district of the province after they were travelling through the area, a spokesman for the provincial governor Attaullah Khogyani said.

However, he did not provide further details.

In recent months, foreign troops increased their drone operations in eastern parts of Afghanistan which has resulted in the deaths of dozens of insurgents.

tolonews.com

Taliban insurgents captured 13 Afghan government soldiers after their helicopter crashed in territory under the militants’ control, police said. Three soldiers were killed in the crash, Reuters reports.

Sayed Aqa Saqeb, police chief for the northern province of Faryab where the transport helicopter went down, said it was not clear why it crashed.

Security forces had launched an operation to rescue the men, he said.

The militants, fighting to expel foreign forces and bring down the U.S.-backed government, have made gains over the past year outside their southern and eastern heartlands and into northern areas including Faryab.

An army spokesman in northern Afghanistan said he had no information about a helicopter crash.

A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, did not comment on the incident itself but denied claims on Twitter that any U.S. military personnel had been captured.

Taliban spokesmen were not available for comment.

panarmenian.net

As the rest of the world grapples with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), their latest attacks on Paris, and what some commentators are calling the Global Jihad Insurgency, Philippines-based Islamic militant group the Abu Sayyaf may be spreading its own unwanted tentacles.

That message was clear following a leaked memo from within the Malaysian police published by the news portal Malaysiakini detailing how the Abu Sayyaf has established cell networks in East and West Malaysia, which were prepared to carry out terrorist-styled attacks.

Local police in Kota Kinabalu – where tourist dollars hold pride of place on the local political agenda – denied the reports circulating on social media that eight suicide bombers had been planted in the state of Sabah and another 10 in Kuala Lumpur.

But these threats can’t be discounted given the vacuum left by the bloody demise of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and its even nastier offshoot Jemaah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT) across the region. Both groups once shared with the Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines’ troubled south.

This is unusual as the Abu Sayyaf – who have been widely, and justifiably, vilified as thugs – have largely kept their operations in Basilan, Jolo  and surrounding islands, spilling into the Sulu Sea and only sometimes into nearby Sabah, since the group’s inception in 1991. Operational cells in Kuala Lumpur would indicate a major expansion of its operations.

Those operations include kidnap and extortion — a major income stream. Group leaders espouse Islamic virtues and have sworn allegiance to ISIS but the few who have had the chance to view them up close and personal tell a different story.

Among them is the Australian Warren Rodwell, who was kidnapped by the Abu Sayyaf and held for more than 15 months. He told The Diplomat that kidnapping and extortion were “just scratches” on the surface of their operations.

He said the group was heavily involved in human trafficking, “none of which is regarded as criminally or perhaps morally wrong to the lowly educated members of this second/third generation cottage industry.”

Rodwell said Abu Sayyaf militants prayed when bored and rarely was jihad ever mentioned.

“I did not hear anything about jihad until the last month (of captivity) when a couple of seasoned jungle fighters were guarding me,” he said. “For the most part, I would regard them as a bunch of thugs.”

Sabah is prone to irregular kidnappings by Abu Sayyaf and has been occasionally embroiled with the rebels who plague the region, contradicting the image espoused by politicians and business.

The East Malaysian state has been subject to unwanted travel warnings from Western embassies and the Sabah state government also has a long and menacing history of leaning on journalists who do not toe the official business-friendly story.

Nevertheless it was JI – as al-Qaeda’s regional proxy – that wrote the latter day prescription for a Southeast Asian caliphate, detonating bombs across Indonesia with much of the planning and proselytizing done from Malaysia and hideouts in Thailand and Cambodia as well as the Philippines.

If the Abu Sayyaf is spreading its wings as an ISIS proxy into Malaysia, a Muslim country with secular pretensions, then fears that the militant insurgency — which dominated the region’s political landscape in the first decade of this century — is making a resurgence will be realized.

Just last week Malaysia’s defense minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, said he and other Malaysian leaders were on an ISIS hit list.

The Abu Sayyaf is every bit the Daesh — an Arab word meaning ‘a group of bigots who impose their will on others.’ The word is currently striking a chord in the English lexicon following the Paris attacks.

As a paramilitary group, the Abu Sayyaf has sworn allegiance to ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has outlasted its contemporaries, is well armed, and can make bombs. And that is exactly what ISIS needs if it is to pick-up from where JI and JAT left off in the push for a Southeast Asian caliphate, not unlike the one it seeks in the Middle East.

thediplomat.com

Moscow will continue supplying free weapons to the Afghan military to help fight the Islamic State (ISIL) jihadist group, Russia’s upper house speaker Valentina Matvienko said on Tuesday.

Around 200 university students are affiliated with the anti-government armed militant groups including Daesh terrorist group in eastern Nangarhar province, it has been reported.

Other militant groups the students are affiliated with includes the Taliban group and Hezb-e-Islami party led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

The distressing report was emerged during a visit by presidential advisor Qamaruddin Shenwari who was leading a delegation to Nangahrar province.

He told BBC that their findings shows the university students are linked with the enemy circles which also includes a number of the university lecturers.

This comes a large group of the students organized a rally in Jalalabad, the capital city of Nangarhar few days earlier and carried flags belonging to Taliban, ISIS and Hezb-e-Islami party.

This comes as the Afghan Intelligence operatives detained at least 27 university students who were affiliated with the anti-government armed militant groups.

NDS said last week that the university students were arrested after they torched the national flag and instead raised the flags of ISIS and Taliban group.

According to NDS, a number of the detained university students also have links with Hezb-e-Islami Party led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

The group was looking to organize further illegal demonstrations in a bid to disrupt the situation in Nangarhar and particularly in Nangrhar University, NDS said, adding that the suspects were arrested during a joint operation conducted by Afghan police and intelligence operatives.

khaama.com