Foreign jihadists, including members of al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), are training at facilities in southern Helmand province in Afghanistan. The camps are used to prepare fighters to conduct attacks throughout Southeast Asia, according to reports reviewed by The Long War Journal. The discovery of the training centers in Baramcha, a town in southern Helmand province, indicates that al Qaeda and affiliated groups are training in multiple regions of Afghanistan.

Earlier this month, the US military raided two significant al Qaeda camps in the neighboring province of Kandahar. One of the facilities was approximately 30 square miles in size, according to a US military spokesman. [See LWJ report, US military strikes large al Qaeda training camps in southern Afghanistan.]

But reporting in the Indian and Pakistani press indicates that the camps in Kandahar are not the only ones where al Qaeda is training inside Afghanistan. These same reports indicate that al Qaeda-linked groups, such as the Indian Muhajideen and Laskhar-e-Jhangvi, are also training in the district of Dishu in Baramcha.

The training facilities in Baramcha are likely tied to al Qaeda’s relocation from northern Pakistan into Afghanistan.

AQIS, which was established in September 2014, is the newest regional branch of al Qaeda. It is led by Asim Umar, who was groomed by al Qaeda to assume a leadership position, and includes jihadists from several established groups in the region. The earliest plots conceived by AQIS focused on the Pakistani military and other security forces, as well as American and Indian interests.

Since the beginning of the year, Pakistani authorities have carried out multiple raids against the group. However, according to Pakistani officials, AQIS has relocated a significant portion of its operations into Helmand. The move by AQIS was made in anticipation of the Pakistani military’s Operation Zarb-e-Azb, an offensive that began in June 2014. The offensive has targeted al Qaeda and affiliated jihadist groups, including several from Central Asia. Some of these same organizations have helped fuel the Taliban’s advances in Afghanistan this year.

In April, Pakistani officials announced that they had broken up an AQIS cell in Karachi. However, a senior Pakistani counterterrorism official, Mohammed Arif Hanif, said that the jihadist group was using Helmand as a hub for its operations. “AQIS terrorists are provided assistance in Helmand from where they travel to Chaman, Quetta, Shikarpur and Karachi,” Hanif said, according to Dawn. A young Bengali suicide bomber who had targeted Pakistani Rangers had been traced back to Helmand, according to Pakistani officials. They added that AQIS had “relocated from Waziristan to Helmand province.”

In August, Dawn again reported that the Taliban was “sheltering” al Qaeda in Helmand. “The bond between us and our Taliban brothers is a solid ideological bond. They opted to lose their government and family members just to protect us,” Qari Abu Bakr, who works for As Sahab, al Qaeda’s propaganda arm, was quoted as saying. “There is no question of us moving apart now after going through this war together. Our common enemy does not know what is coming its way,” he added.

Al Qaeda has announced its relocation out of northern Pakistan. Earlier this month, an audio message featuring Hossam Abdul Raouf, a veteran al Qaeda leader who is close to Ayman al Zawahiri, was released online. Al Qaeda has “almost completely vacated Waziristan and Pakistan,” Raouf said in the recording. He explained that the “weight” of al Qaeda has been shifted to Syria and Yemen, because that is where al Qaeda’s efforts are most needed. But it is clear that al Qaeda has relocated senior leaders, including perhaps Raouf himself, to Afghanistan as well.

In July, the US killed Abu Khalil al Sudani, one of Osama bin Laden’s and Ayman al Zawahiri’s closest compatriots, in an airstrike in Paktika province. In October 2014, another veteran al Qaeda commander, Abu Bara al Kuwaiti, perished in a US airstrike in Nangarhar province.

The training facilities in Baramcha are, therefore, almost certainly part of al Qaeda’s broader effort over the past few years to entrench its operations inside Afghanistan once again.

Taliban control Dishu, training camps established

The conditions are ripe for al Qaeda and affiliated groups to train at camps in Baramcha. The Afghan government admitted that the wider Dishu district is under the control of the Taliban, The New York Times reported in June.

In 2014, Pajhwok Afghan News reported, citing Afghan police officials, that Taliban “training camps and hideouts of drug smugglers were operational in [the] Dishu and Khanishin districts” in Helmand.

“[T]he rebels had established training centers in the Baramcha area of Dishu district,” the Afghan news agency said in February of that year.

The Taliban and al Qaeda have used Baramcha to host training facilities because the town is located in the remote southern district and borders Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. The Afghan military and police find it difficult to project power in the area, and jihadists can quickly cross the border into Pakistan if threatened. The town is across the border from the Gerdi Jangal refugee camp, where one of the Taliban’s four regional military shuras is based.

The US military noted in October 2010 that Baramcha was a key node for the Taliban and “foreign fighters,” a term the US military often uses to mean al Qaeda.

“The area is a Taliban command and control area that consists of narcotics trafficking, weapons and ammunition storage, improvised explosive device factories, and foreign fighter training areas,” the now-defunct International Security Assistance Force noted in a press release announcing an operation to clear the Taliban and allied jihadists from the town.

US Marines and Afghan troops ultimately cleared Baramcha, but after US forces withdrew from the area in 2012, it quickly slipped back under the Taliban’s control, and the jihadists’ camps were back in operation.

Jihadists train in Baramcha

The Pakistani and Indian press have identified several jihadists who have passed through Baramcha for training over the past several years.

On Oct. 7, the Islamabad-based Daily Express reported that police captured Saeedullah, “an important member of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent.” According to police, Saeedullah (AKA Rizwan Mullah, Choti Dunya), who was arrested in Karachi, “confessed that he had received training from Amir Jawad in Baramcha city of Afghanistan.”

In April 2014, The Indian Express reported that two Pakistanis from Karachi, Abdul Waleed Rind and Fahim, were recruited by Riyaz Bhatkal, who was identified as the founder of the Indian Muhajideen. The two Pakistani jihadists, who were captured inside India in March 2014 before they could attack Indian soldiers, attended separate training camps in Baramcha.

“The training routine for Fahim and Waleed, even though they went separately to different camps, was quite similar – a 15-21 day capsule with three days dedicated to assembling and disassembling the AK-47, three days to do the same with 9 mm pistols, two days on grenades and ways to throw them,” The Indian Express reported. “The remaining days were used for physical training and endurance.”

And in August 2015, The Friday Times, a Lahore-based publication, reported that Abdul Kabeer Shakir, a leader in Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), is “providing financial and other assistance” to “assassins” that are targeting Pakistani Shiites. ASWJ is the new name for the radical anti-Shiite Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), which is closely allied with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and other Pakistani terrorist groups.

“A source in law enforcement said the people involved in sectarian killings usually received training at a bordering village named Baramcha,” The Friday Times reported.

longwarjournal.org

The governor of Jawzjan’s Kham Ab District says that Taliban militants are planning to sneak into Turkmenistan.

Engineer Ahmad said that Taliban are trying to have a permanent presence in his district to implement their plans.

“Kham Ab shares a border with Turkmenistan. Therefore, the enemy is trying to keep the district instable in order to sneak into Turkmenistan and secretly began its activities there,” Ahmad told Radio Azadi.

Meanwhile, Media Advisor and Spokesperson to the First Vice President says that 80 Taliban have fled to an island in Amu River that separates Afghanistan and Turkmenistan.

Sultan Faizy said First Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum who leads the military operation in Faryab and Jawzjan province has shared the issue with Turkmenistan’s Ambassador for Afghanistan.

According to Faizy, Turkmenistan has preparedness to cope with any possible militant threat, adding that militants have two options.

“If decide to surrender, it is one option. And another option is they likely die. Because, it is winter and they don’t have access to logistical resources or food,” Sultan quoted by Azadi Radio as saying.

However, Taliban in a statement on their website say that their fighters have no need to spill over to Turkmenistan.

khaama.com

As Afghan soldiers and police struggle to contain an escalating insurgency that has targeted several cities in recent weeks, the country’s special forces are being tested as never before.

Trained in counter-insurgency tactics at the elite School of Excellence near Kabul, these soldiers led the battle to retake Kunduz, after regular forces fled their posts last month to cede the northern city to militants they easily outnumbered.

“The credit for the Kunduz victory goes to the Afghan special forces of the police and Afghan National Army,” said interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi, referring to the government’s recapture of most of Kunduz a few days after it fell to the Taliban in late September.

“They are tough fighters.”

Events surrounding the first capitulation of a provincial capital to the Taliban since they were ousted from power in 2001 underlined the weakness of Afghanistan’s regular army and police and the relative strength of its special forces.

Worryingly for Kabul and the United States, which has spent around $65 billion training local forces to allow the rest of its troops to withdraw, Afghan special forces are feeling the strain.

Numbering about 18,000 of a total Afghan National Security Force of up to 350,000 and divided between the army, police and Interior Ministry, Afghan special forces units and commandos undertook 2,800 independent operations in the year to May 2015, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Defense.

“Our forces shoulder a lot of responsibility and sometimes they have to respond to attacks as often as twice a day,” said Abdullah Guard, head of police special forces in Kunduz.

“WE WILL LOSE EVERYTHING”

With better equipment, training and pay, as well as more prestige than regular troops, special forces are the first units turned to in a crisis.

That burden was bothering Afghan special forces commanders even before the dramatic events in Kunduz.

Since then, heavy fighting has flared near Ghazni, a city 130 km southwest of Kabul, and, in the last few days, around Lashkar Gah in the south, Herat in the west and in the northern Faryab province bordering Turkmenistan.

Some commanders are concerned that too much reliance is being placed on units originally intended to provide specialized back-up to regular security forces.

“Commandos are not being used in the way they were supposed to be,” one Afghan commander complained to a team of U.S. special forces at a remote outpost in Paktia province, close to the Pakistan border where the Taliban have long been active.

“They’re being used like a conventional unit,” he added at a meeting this summer convened for the benefit of a visiting U.S. special forces commander. The Afghan officer declined to be named, because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

“If they continue to use commandos like a conventional force, we won’t get any new recruits and we will lose everything that we have.”

As training has been handed from U.S. to Afghan instructors, there have been complaints from some officers that the quality of recruits has fallen.

“When we get them, we have to teach them everything from the beginning,” the Afghan commander said.

As international forces step back from active combat, the dynamic between U.S. and Afghan special forces units has shifted, with American soldiers leaving most of the fighting to local colleagues.

“We’re not going out as much as we used to, and that’s a good thing,” said one U.S. special forces adviser.

The Americans’ main role, according to command sergeant major James Napolet, NATO Special Operations Command Component-Afghanistan, is to support Afghans where their resources are weakest, including intelligence and medical evacuation.

GROWING CAPABILITY

NATO’s 13,000-strong Resolute Support force is there to “advise and assist” after the main combat mission, numbering 130,000 soldiers at its peak, ended last year.

A few thousand more U.S. troops engage in hunting senior Taliban and al Qaeda figures.

In the heat of battle, lines between Afghan and foreign special forces can become blurred.

On Oct. 1, U.S. advisers working alongside Afghan special forces came under attack from Taliban fighters in Kunduz and returned fire, which a NATO spokesman said was within their remit to “protect themselves if necessary”.

The U.S. military has taken responsibility for the bombing of a hospital in Kunduz that killed 22 staff and patients, which it said came in response to an Afghan request for air support.

But U.S. and Afghan special forces also point to notable successes.

Earlier this month, General John Campbell, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, hailed one of the biggest ground assaults his forces had conducted, targeting al Qaeda cells in Kandahar province in the south.

While a statement did not specify the involvement of special forces, the operation was the kind carried out by elite commandos.

“I couldn’t be prouder of our brave U.S. servicemen and women and their Afghan counterparts,” Campbell said. “It’s because of their extraordinary efforts that terrorists here haven’t been able to attack our homeland in over 14 years.”

thepeninsulaqatar.com

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had a telephonic conversation over NATO’s future in Afghanistan.

“I commended the bravery of the Afghan National Security Forces who are leading security efforts across the country in a very challenging environment,” said Stoltenberg in a statement.

During the conversation the NATO Secretary General also expressed that they will continue to support the Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan.

They also discussed the security situation in Afghanistan and the future of Resolute Support mission.

The conversation followed recent discussions with Allied leaders regarding the future of NATO’s presence in Afghanistan.

“I reiterated my appreciation for President Barack Obama’s announcement that the United States will maintain its current troop levels in Afghanistan through 2016, and will retain a substantial presence beyond 2016.” said Stoltenberg.

“This important decision paves the way for a sustained presence by NATO Allies and partners in Afghanistan,” Stoltenberg added.

Meanwhile NATO Secretary General expressed his deepest regret over the recent tragedy affecting the Doctors without Borders hospital in Kunduz, and offered his condolences to the victims and their families.

“I stressed the need for thorough and transparent investigations, as well as the need to draw lessons and take any necessary steps to avoid similar events in the future.” Stoltenberg said.

At the end of the conversation, both Ghani and Stoltenberg reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening the partnership between the Alliance and Afghanistan.

Indonesian meatball seller Ahmad Junaedi was drawn to the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria by the promise of a high salary to pay off his debts and a desire to help children living in the militants’ “caliphate”.

But the 32-year-old villager from Java island quickly became disillusioned – bored with his job making kebabs for Arab fighters, disappointed at the low pay and upset at tales of the group’s brutal violence.

The father-of-four eventually persuaded his commanders to let him go home, joining a growing number of disenchanted people leaving the militants, a trend experts say could give governments a new weapon to deter potential recruits.

“I was deceived,” Junaedi, who was also an imam at a mosque in his village, told AFP during a recent interview near Jakarta, under heavy guard by the country’s counter-terror agency. “It was boring there and all the promises were lies.”

“Also, I know that in Islam we say ‘an eye for an eye’, but what they did there was much more than that – it is a violation of what religion teaches us,” he added.

Junaedi was arrested in March this year, several months after his return. He went on trial this week in Jakarta and is likely to be jailed.

SILVER LINING

Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, has a long history of struggling with Islamic militancy and has suffered a string of attacks in the past 15 years, including the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.

While a crackdown has been largely successful and there have been no major attacks since 2009, the emergence of IS has sparked alarm. Authorities say that over 250 Indonesians have headed to the Middle East to join the group, raising fears they could revive militant networks on their return.

However the country’s counter-terror chiefs see a silver lining to the handful of former IS members returning disenchanted – they are hopeful that stories of misery and disappointment can deter potential recruits.

This approach was put forward in a report last month by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at King’s College London, which found a growing number of “disillusioned” Islamic State fighters from a range of countries had defected.

Junaedi featured among 58 people listed in the report as having publicly spoken out about their defection since January 2014. Like him, some were disappointed that promises of generous financial rewards had failed to materialise, and were upset by the killing of fellow Muslims.

Saud Usman Nasution, head of Indonesia’s counter-terror agency, told AFP that at least five Indonesians have returned home disenchanted.

The most recent returnees were a man from West Java province and his four-year-old son, according to Nasution. The man had been heading to work on an IS oil field after being promised a hefty salary but eventually turned himself in after failing to cross from Turkey to Syria.

‘WAR IDEOLOGIES’

Junaedi’s story echoes that of other low-income Indonesians drawn to IS. He was alarmed by pictures on social media of wounded children in IS-held areas of Syria and encouraged by sermons in mosques supporting the jihadists. In March 2014, he was approached by a recruiter who promised he could pay off his nine million rupiah (US$670) debt with just a few days work.

Like others who joined the jihadists, who have taken over vast swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq and declared a “caliphate”, he travelled overland from Turkey and ended up in a village near Syria’s second city of Aleppo.

His main work was preparing food for fighters, but he also stood guard at the village and sometimes helped with teaching children.

But he was disappointed with the salary – the equivalent of just US$50 month – and found the day-to-day life in the village, which was not the site of major fighting, monotonous.

He was also horrified at tales of the jihadists’ brutality – IS has beheaded several foreign captives – but claims to have seen little first-hand.

After three months, the regional IS commander agreed to let him leave, but with a warning that he would be killed if he returned. “To Indonesians who want to go but have only heard about the situation in Syria, think again, because you will be sorry,” Junaedi said.

Despite such stories, authorities believe there is still a high risk of Indonesians joining IS, with Jakarta-based terrorism expert Sidney Jones warning that social media is playing a key role.

“Often these pictures of triumphant fighters, all smiles with their rifles and sophisticated weapons and so on, that can be a very powerful tool for attracting people,” she told AFP.

Experts also worry that current Indonesian laws are not adequate to tackle the threat of IS. Nasution describes the battle against the group’s propaganda as a “war of ideologies”.

He recalls how Indonesians who trained with Islamic militants in Afghanistan in the 1990s came back and launched terror attacks, including the Bali bombings.

“(The radicals) are underground preparing, and sending people to Syria to train there,” he said. “This is far from over”.

channelnewsasia.com

At least 21 militants were killed late on Wednesday in fresh airstrikes near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

“Twenty-one militants were killed in air trikes in Rajgal and Tirah areas of Khyber Agency,” Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement.

Earlier on October 11, at least 22 terrorists were killed in air strikes by Pakistani warplanes in the North Waziristan tribal agency before dawn.

Six compounds of terrorists were decimated in the air raids in Shawal Valley, according to the military’s media wing. The strategic valley is located on the confluence of borders between North and South Waziristan agencies.

The military has been engaged in a massive operation, codenamed Zarb-e-Azb, in North Waziristan since mid-June 2014. Most parts of the agency, once a stronghold of local and foreign militants, have been purged of terrorists.

However, some militants are holed up in the thickly forested Shawal Valley, which is now regarded as the last bastion of militants. The military mounted a ground offensive in Shawal in August, this year, after softening targets with air strikes.

tribune.com.pk

The United States is preparing to sell eight new F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, a media report has said ahead of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s meeting with President Barack Obama on Thursday.

According to the report, the Congress was notified just days ago about the proposed sale of the additional fighters although it is not clear if the White House plans to announce the sale of the aircraft during Sharif’s trip.

Sharif landed in the US on October 20 on a state visit, and is scheduled to meet Obama on Thursday. The new fighter jets would add to Pakistan’s sizable force of fighter jets which includes more than 70 F-16s and dozens of French and Chinese attack aircraft, it said.

Earlier in April, the US State Department approved Pakistan’s request for a billion dollars worth of military hardware and equipment, identifying Pakistan as a country of vital importance for US foreign policy and national interests.

Dawn newspaper reported that in May, 2015, the US handed over to Pakistan over 14 combat aircraft, 59 military trainer jets and 374 armoured personnel carriers. The weapons supplied to Pakistan were earlier used by American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The report said that many in the US Congress are concerned that the F-16 jets are more useful to Pakistan in its long confrontation with India than for counterterrorism operations. It is not certain whether the Congress will approve the deal.

According to the report, the Congress and the US State Department are already in a standoff over an effort to sell used Navy cutter vessels to Pakistan earlier in 2015.

In March, the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs put a hold on about $150 million in foreign military financing. The committee said the cutters were not essential to fighting militants, NYT quoted US officials as saying.

A palpable sense of security is returning to Pakistan as a crackdown on militancy bears fruit, but critics warn the government has not taken long-term steps to tackle the underlying scourge of extremist Islam.

Peace in Pakistan and Afghanistan will be top of the agenda in Washington on Thursday when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif meets US President Barack Obama.

At home, an army offensive against extremists and a grand “National Action Plan” (NAP) to rein in militancy have seen a drop in attacks this year, while recent Supreme Court rulings on blasphemy have encouraged moderates that the establishment is willing to take a stand against religious intolerance.

Emboldened Pakistanis are once again attending public gatherings, culminating in this year’s Independence Day in August, which saw thousands attending celebrations in Karachi — where Taliban “no-go” areas have recently been liberated by police.

“It is extremely peaceful now,” Mohammad Ameen, a 30-year-old mechanic from Karachi told AFP.

“Before, everyone was worried, fearful… but now things have changed.”

Things began in earnest in June of last year when the army launched a long-awaited offensive against militants in the tribal areas of North Waziristan.

And in December Islamabad unleashed the NAP amid a wave of outrage after Taliban militants massacred 154 people at a Peshawar school, most of them children.

A six-year moratorium on the death penalty was lifted and the constitution was amended to allow military courts to try those accused of carrying out attacks.

The combined results, so far, are persuasive: in 2013 there were 170 reported attacks killing 1,202 people, while in 2014 the figures stood at 110 reported attacks killing 644, according to an AFP tally.

The total number of blasts so far this year, however, has dropped to 36 with 211 dead.

Gratitude towards the army has even spawned a viral hashtag lauding the powerful military chief, #ThankYouRaheelSharif.

The crackdown has seemingly prompted several institutions to confront extremist elements openly — judicially and otherwise.

Earlier this month, Pakistan’s Supreme Court upheld the death sentence for Mumtaz Qadri, feted by Islamists after he murdered a politician who sought blasphemy law reform, in a judgement moderates hailed as a blow against religious extremism.

Blasphemy is a hugely sensitive issue in Pakistan, and courts previously judged such cases “in fear”, said Zohra Yusuf, chairwoman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

“Now they will decide these matters without any fear,” she commented.

– Prepared to die –

Perhaps the most high-profile change under the NAP has been the resumption of executions, which has seen the state go on a hangings spree.

Though official figures are not available, rights groups and an AFP tally estimate that more than 250 people have been executed since December.

However critics question the efficacy of the hangings, with Amir Rana, a leading security analyst and columnist, estimating just 25 of those executed had actually been convicted of terror charges.

At any rate, recent research by the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS) suggests that death is no deterrent for militants.

“Many of the extremist terrorists that the executions have seemingly been revived for are individuals who… are committed to dying for their cause,” wrote the paper’s author Najam U Din.

Analysts have cited one area listed under the NAP’s 20-point agenda where government action could have more impact: Pakistan’s Islamic seminaries, or madrassas.

With little oversight of what was being taught to the children enrolled in them and accusations of foreign funding, fears grew after Peshawar that some were breeding grounds for intolerance — or even extremism.

But, said security analyst Rana, little has been done.

“The government lacks the courage to formulate a permanent strategy to bring religious seminaries under complete control,” he said.

“They fear that the religious groups will come out in streets and resist.”

In Peshawar, where the school massacre was Pakistan’s worst ever terror attack, citizens are enjoying the effects of the crackdown, but remain cautious.

“I had stopped going to the mosque for prayers… as so many bombings were taking place. Now I feel safe and take family and kids to the park and picnic places on weekends,” said marble stone dealer Javed Ali.

“Since around 2014 the security situation has improved — but I cannot say it is ideal.”

bangkokpost.com

Some believe Moscow’s seizing on the Islamic State’s rise in Afghanistan as an opportunity to expand Russian influence.

A flurry of visits to Moscow by Afghan officials added to speculation, and kindled concerns among Afghans with grim memories of Soviet occupation in the 1980s, although no one predicts troops on the ground.

About 15 Taliban militants and six security force members were killed during clashes as Taliban briefly seized a district in Afghanistan’s western province of Herat Tuesday night, the authorities said Wednesday.

Hundreds of Taliban fighters attacked Ghoryan district and took the control of the district’s bazaar and government offices following heavy clashes in the province with Herat city as its capital, some 640 km west of Kabul.

“As a result of Herat police operations in respond to Taliban attack on Ghoryan district, a total of 15 Taliban terrorists have been eliminated,” Sediq Sediqqi, Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman, said on his twitter account.

A total of six security forces were also killed during the clashes in the district, bordering Iran, according to district officials. They said the militants retreated to outer sides of the district after setting on fire several security checkpoints and a number of government offices.

The Taliban has intensified attacks over the past couple of months as the Afghan security forces assumed the full security responsibilities from NATO-led troops since Jan. 1.

In southern Helmand province, sporadic clashes have been continuing in outskirts of provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, 555 km south of Kabul, as the Taliban militants advanced and captured several security checkpoints in suburbs of the city overnight, local officials said earlier on Wednesday, adding dozens of militants had been killed since the clashes erupted four days ago.

Taliban militants have also been attempting to take territory and consolidate their positions ahead of winter in the mountainous Central Asian country.

Nearly 1,600 civilians were killed and more than 3,300 others wounded in conflicts and attacks in the first half of the year, according to UN mission figures.