Nusratullo Mirzoyev, the chief of the State Committee for National Security (SCNS)’s office in the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO), says the country’s relevant bodies have identified 344 Tajik nationals fighting in Syria and Iraq.

Khorog-based media outlets report that a scientific-practical conference entitled “Threat of Terrorism and Extremism to Tajikistan and Measure s to Prevent It” took place in Khorog, the capital of Gorno Badakhshan recently.

In a statement delivered at the conference, the GBAO regional security chief reportedly noted that probably 377 Tajiks were fighting in Syria and Iraq.  “Information that 50 of them have been killed has been confirmed,” Mirzoyev noted.

He further noted that for the purpose of preventing Tajik nationals from joining terrorist and extremist groups more than 4,100 Tajik students enrolled at religious schools abroad had been returned home.

Speaking at the conference, Mirzoyev also expressed concern about an alarming situation in northern Afghanistan.

“Since the beginning of this year alone, extremists groups have committed 40 terrorist acts in various regions of Afghanistan that have left 150 innocent people dead and 100 wounded,” the GBAO regional security chief noted.

According to him, 30 Tajik nationals have joined extremist groups active in Afghan areas bordering Tajikistan.

At least a dozen Afghan police officers were killed in a series of insurgent attacks on checkpoints in the country’s southern Uruzgan province, an official said.

Nematullah Khan Roshan, deputy district chief for the Charcheno district in Uruzgan, said on Wednesday that Taliban insurgents attacked three separate police checkpoints on Monday night.

Roshan added that pitched battles are still ongoing in the area and that government reinforcements have been deployed.

The current confrontation is so intense, Roshan said, that the corpses of both police officers and insurgents killed in the battle have been laying in open ground with no way to safely recover the bodies.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, at least 10 insurgents were killed by government forces in the northwestern province of Badghis near the border with Turkmenistan, an official said.

Mirwais Mirzakwal, spokesman for the provincial governor, said on Wednesday that the operation in the Bala Murghab district near the Turkmen border was still ongoing.

Mirzakwal said his government had “done our best to provide security along the border.”

Mirzakwal added that last year Turkmen authorities started building a fence along the border with Afghanistan after a Taliban attack in which three members of the Turkmen security forces were wounded.

The Islamic State is on the move and has partnered with another terror organization known as “The Higg” who is giving them a hand in their hostile takeover of Afghanistan, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer said on Fox News’.

Shaffer, a former military intelligence officer, said sources told him that ISIS has taken control of 5 northern provinces in Afghanistan and has also taken over the drug trade in the south.

“We are talking about over 1,000 ISIS fighters, many of which are actually Uzbeks and Chechens, who are coming in and are being very effective in doing what ISIS does best,” Shaffer told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly.

He added that the fighters are going after mineral resources in northern Afghanistan, including Lithium.

But Shaffer said ISIS’ takeover of parts of Afghanistan could prove difficult for the terror organization.

“I’m hearing from the Afghan government, who is aware of all this, that they are trying to mobilize even some of the Taliban to pick up arms against these guys. It’s very serious,” Shaffer told O’Reilly.

ISIS reportedly captured the ancient Syrian town of Palmyra Wednesday just days after it captured the key city of Ramadi in Iraq.

13 insurgents have been killed Pakistani military’s fresh warplanes bombardment in North Waziristan.

Pakistani Army’s media wing, Inter-Services Public Relation (ISPR) says that war jets bombed insurgent hideouts in Dattakhil area of North Waziristan on Wednesday morning.

13 militants were reportedly killed and their hideouts destroyed in the bombardment.

Pakistani military began a sweeping operation against militants in Waziristan in June 2014 after peace talks with TTP collapsed and a deadly terrorist attack carried out at Karachi airport in which around 30 people killed.

Pakistan claims to have broken the backbone of the militants groups with killing thousands of their fighters and destroying their places of escape.

Four soldiers have embraced martyrdom while 44 militants were killed during separate military operations across the country in past 24 hours, Ministry of Defense announced on Wednesday.

General Zahir Azimi, spokesman for the ministry tweeted this morning about the martyrdom of four Afghan National Army soldiers due to landmine explosion and insurgent fire in past 24 hours but he has not written the exact location of the incidents.

He states in another tweet that 44 militants were killed and 74 others wounded during military operations in the same period of time.

Azimi says 21 Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) were also discovered and defused by the military during these operations.

After taking full responsibility of the security from NATO forces at the beginning of this year, Afghan forces began large-scale operations against insurgents.

Insurgents have suffered heavy casualties and some areas held by them for years have been taken back by Army during these operations.

A large explosion hit Afghanistan’s capital Tuesday and sirens could be heard as rescuers raced to the scene in central Kabul near several government buildings.

There was no immediate word of any casualties.

A Reuters witness said the explosion hit an intersection near the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Mines.

The blast was strong enough to rattle windows several kilometers away in Kabul’s diplomatic district.