CNN has published the “first ISIS video with the group’s flag” in Afghanistan, according to Khaama.

CNN writes that the group agreed to allow a CNN cameraman film them while they are filming in a valley not far to the south of Kabul.

According to CNN the masked gunmen who are covering their faces like the ones in Iraq and Syria with holding flag of ISIS in their hands says that they are recruiting fighters for ISIS and are in constant contact with ISIS commanders in Iraq and Syria.

One of the man in the video is quoted by CNN as saying “He called us, saying: ‘the IS people have come to Afghanistan — let’s join them.’ Then we joined them and pledged allegiance to them.”

CNN has quoted Colonel J B Vowell, a US military officer,  as confirming the ISIS recruitment but he says that the number is very small “There has been some very small numbers of recruitment that has happened,” he is quoted as saying.

“You have disaffected Taliban who are losing politically and some of the younger, newer fighters are moving to that camp. It doesn’t mean it’s operationally better. We are concerned about it — resources, weapons, capabilities. (But) I don’t see an operational effect.” Colonel J B Vowell.

Two soldiers have embraced martyrdom while 26 insurgents killed during separate military operations across the country in past 24 hours, according to information released this morning, according to Khaama.

According to a statement issued by the Ministry of Defense two soldiers from Afghan National Army embraced martyrdom due to bomb blast and insurgent fires.

The statement does not contain information about the exact location on the incidents.

Also, 26 insurgents were killed during separate security forces operations in eight provinces in past 24 hours, according to local officials in Kandahar and Ministry of Interior statement.

Security forces also destroyed 38 hectares of poppy field in Rigo area of Panjwai District of Kandahar province, local officials add.

Some 90 percent of the raw material used in manufacturing heroin is reportedly supplied to the world by the conflict-ridden Afghanistan.

At least 36 different types of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) were also discovered and defused by the security forces in past 24 hours, according to the statements.

In the meantime, Ministry of Interior states in a statement issued this morning s that 26 insurgents According to the statement 34 insurgents were also wounded and six others arrested by security forces.

IEDs are considered one of the biggest threats to security forces as well as civilians in Afghanistan.

According to a UN report civilian casualties topped 10,000 last year mainly because of IEDs explosions and ground engagements. The number is also the highest recorded by the UN since 2007 when it started tracking civilian casualties in Afghanistan.

The Afghan Taliban released on Sunday a biography of their reclusive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.

In hiding for 13 years, the Afghan Taliban supremo disappeared after US airstrikes dislodged the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001.

The biography comes amid rising speculation over the elusive leader’s whereabouts and whether he is still alive and able to lead the militant group. Further, there have been reports of  growing frustration within Taliban ranks over the lack of leadership by Omar, particularly in light of Islamic State’s growing popularity.

The Afghan Taliban chief who has not been seen in public for more than a decade was last heard in 2007 – eight years ago.

However, if there were any doubts regarding his role in the Afghan Taliban, the biography cleared them.

“Mullah Mohammad Omar (Mujahid) is still the leader in the present hierarchy of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” the biography asserts.

“His deputy, the leading council, judiciary, nine executive commissions and three other administration organs are active under his leadership which form the warp and woof of the present setup of the Islamic Emirate,” it added.

The Afghan Taliban chief’s biography was released on April 4, 2015 — the 19th anniversary of the organisation’s rule. Around 1,500 Taliban scholars who declared Mullah Omar as “Amir-ul-Momineen” (Leader of pious people) were present at the gathering.

“Under present conditions of regularly being chased by the enemy, no major change and disruption has been observed in the routine works of Mullah Mohammad Omar (Mujahid) in following and organising the Jihadi activities as the leader of the Islamic Emirate,” the biography said.

The biography which was issued in English, Urdu, Pashto and Dari further claimed, “He (Omar) keenly follows and inspects the Jihadi activities against the infidel and brutal foreign invaders.”

“In organising and reshuffling the Jihadi and military issues, he delivers his orders in a specific way to Jihadi commanders.”

Further elaborating on how the elusive leader runs the organisation, the biography added, “He regularly follows Jihadi publications and other international media resources to judge his victories and likewise other issues against the foreign invaders. In this way, he remains in touch with the day to day happenings of his country as well as the outside world. These activities form his basic daily life in the present circumstances.”

Mullah Omar’s whereabouts are unknown though Afghan intelligence officials have on a number of occasions claimed Omar is hiding in Karachi. Meanwhile, former Afghan President Hamid Karzai has long claimed the Taliban supremo has been hiding in Quetta. However, the claim has been denied by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and Afghan Taliban officials.

Though, the Taliban initially routinely issued Omar’s traditional “Eid” messages, his voice was last heard eight years ago.

His last audio message in 2007 addressed his commanders, ordering them to expel Taliban commander Mansoor Dadullah for killing Taliban men on suspicion of them spying on his brother Mullah Dadullah.

The feared commander Mullah Dadullah was killed by foreign and Afghan forces in southern Afghanistan in 2007.

Earlier it was reported that a growing number of militant commanders in Afghanistan and Pakistan were beginning to look towards Islamic State (IS) for inspiration, frustrated by Mullah Omar’s lack of leadership.

In Afghanistan, one militant commander said many have turned to IS. “Look, we have been fighting for years but we don’t have an inch of land in our possession in Afghanistan,” said the senior commander, who spoke from the province of Kunar.

“We have serious doubts about whether he (Omar) is alive at all … Abu Bakr al Baghdadi is visible and is leading his people,” the commander said, referring to the IS leader.

The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) which considered Mullah Omar as their “Ameer” switched loyalties to the Islamic State of Dai’sh a few days ago. The leader of the group in a video said Mullah Omar has not been seen in years and that it is declaring allegiance to Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi.

The UN experts told the UN Security Council that 6,500 foreign militants fighting in Afghanistan have links to Al-Qaeda and the ISIL extremists, Tolonews reported.

‎According to the experts, Iraq and Syria, where more than 22,000 foreign fighters are engaged in fighting, are comprising a “veritable international finishing school for extremists.”

Hundreds more foreign fighters were fighting in Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan, the report added.

The UN report came a day after a group of Uzbek militants claiming to be the members of a militant group allegedly sworn allegiance to the ISIL extremists in Afghanistan.

The Russian-led political-military bloc, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, gathered this week in Dushanbe to discuss Afghanistan and the potential threat posed by instability there spilling over into Central Asia, according to Eurasianet.org.

And behind the scenes, Tajikistan is reportedly complaining about the failure of some group members — notably Russia — to deliver on the promises of military aid that they’ve made.

The April 2 meeting in Dushnbe gathered the foreign ministers of the CSTO states — Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan.

The group discussed “the necessity of strengthening cooperation of international and regional organizations and increasing their efforts toward providing security in Central Asia in light of the trends developing in Afghanistan,” the CSTO said in a statement. The group also discussed implementation of the September 2013 agreemen “On providing aid to the Republic of Tajikistan to strengthen the Tajik-Afghan border,” the statement said.

Russia used the occasion to sound the alarm about the gathering threat of Islamist militants in northern Afghanistan. Moscow’s ambassador to Dushanbe, Igor Frolov-Lyakin, told newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta that “Taliban fighters are massing in northern Afghanistan on the border with Tajikistan, in Gorno Badakhshan and other provinces, according to reliable sources.”

He added that there are ISIS cells, “albeit so far small” in the area as well: “how serious their role is now is difficult to say, but nevertheless they are appearing there.” (This is somewhat of a retreat from earlier statements by Russian officials; President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy to Afghanistan in December gave detailed information about ISIS training camps in northern Afghanistan, but Afghanistan officials quickly denied that.)

But while Russia is talking up the threat to Tajikistan, Dushanbe is complaining that it (along with other CSTO member states) have not fulfilled its obligations to provide aid as promised in the September 2013 agreement, reported the Russian service of Deutsche Welle. DW noted that the agreement called for two phases of military aid: an initial “urgent” provision and then a longer-term one:

But it’s April 2015 and only Belarus and Armenia have fulfilled their obligations on the emergency aid. A source in the Tajikistan border service told DW that Minsk immediately allocated equipment to Tajikistan’s soldiers — uniforms, and also protection and survival gear. Armenia bought Tajikistan all-terrain vehicles. The other members of the organization, by all accounts, have given Tajikistan nothing.

There has been some public grumbling in Tajikistan on the slow pace of Russian military aid; last fall an opposition leader complained that “only a tenth” of the military aid promised had been delivered. So there are inconsistent claims (and DW didn’t get any comment from Russia) but it seems like whatever the amount, Tajikistan isn’t happy with it.

If Russia has in fact been providing aid to the Tajikistan border guards it hasn’t been advertising it. It did, however, last month announce that it was reinforcing its own military base in the country with 100 new BTR-82A armored personnel carriers.

Pakistani Kashmir is set to expel some 11,000 illegal Afghan refugees under a national anti-terror plan announced in the wake of the country’s worst ever militant attack, police said Thursday.

There are an estimated three million Afghan refugees living in Pakistan, either officially or unofficially, most of whom left their country to escape conflict in the 1980s and 1990s.

But they are viewed with deep suspicion inside Pakistan and routinely accused by authorities of harbouring militants.

“Under the National Action Plan against terrorism, some 11,000 Afghans would be expelled from Azad (independent) Kashmir,” senior police official Faheem Abbasi told a press conference in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir.

The plan, which involved the outlawing of militant groups, registration of seminaries and crackdown on hate speech, was announced in the wake of a Taliban massacre that killed 154 people, mostly school children, in December.

Pakistan also lifted a six-year moratorium on the death penalty and announced the establishment of military courts in the case of terror offences.

Twelve suspects have so far been arrested over the school attack in the northwestern town of Peshawar, most of them Pakistani nationals, according to the army.

But the killings have hardened prejudices toward Afghan refugees, with more than 30,000 leaving Pakistan between January and the first week of February, according to figures released by the International Organization for Migration.

Pakistan plans to register the 1.4 million Afghan refugees currently living in the country illegally over the next four months, with a view to eventually repatriating them.

Abbasi said the home department was also set to outlaw 64 militant outfits in Kashmir that are also banned in the rest of Pakistan, and create a new anti-terror force comprising 500 personnel.

Pakistan has banned several dozen militant organisations on paper but many of them, particularly anti-India and sectarian groups, continue to operate with relative impunity.

At least 17 people were killed and dozens others wounded after a heavy explosion rocked Matoon, provincial capital of Khost province this morning, Khaama reported.

The explosion has taken place among civilians who wanted to take part in the demonstration against the acting provincial governor of Khost province.

Member of Parliament Hamayoun Hamayoun is reportedly among the ones wounded.

Hamayoun Hamayoun is the Head of Defense Committee of Parliament.

No group has immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

Satp.org wrote that two Police constables were killed when three armed assailants ambushed a check post within the remit of Lea Market Police Station area of Lyari Town in Karachi, the provincial capital of Sindh, on March 30, reports The News.

On March 31, in separate encounters with the Police that began late in the night of March 30, four criminals, including alleged gangsters and terrorists, were killed in different areas of Karachi, reports The News. Police shot dead an alleged criminal at Swati Mohalla of Sherpao Colony in Quaidabad in Landhi Town when he refused to stop after he was signaled by personnel conducting snap checking.

Also, the personnel of Kalakot and Napier Police raided a gangsters’ hideout near Kashti Chowk in Kalakot area of Lyari Town killing two armed gangsters. Police also found several weapons, hand grenades and ammunition from the hideout and a search was under way for those who had escaped. In another incident, the Kharadar Police killed an armed gangster in an ‘encounter’ in Katchi Gali No 3 in Saddar Town.

Separately, the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) of the Sindh Police claimed to have killed two ‘militants’ affiliated with the Khan Zaman Mehsud gang in an encounter near Toori Bangash Chowk of Orangi Town on March 31, reports The News. Police found heavy weapons, explosives, a motorcycle-borne improvised explosive device and live ammunition from the militants’ hideout.

Meanwhile, an unidentified armed assailant who had been injured in a purported encounter with the Police in Khuda Ki Basti area of Surjani Town succumbed to his injuries on March 31, reports The News.

A group of Uzbek militants, as reported by Tolonews.com, claiming to be the members of Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) militant group have allegedly sworn allegiance to Islamic State extremists in Afghanistan.

They have released a video purportedly showing the beheading of an Afghan soldier in retaliation to detention of a number of female IMU supporters by the Afghan security forces in northern Faryab.

Sadullah Urgeni, shown in the video as the commander of Uzbek militants in Afghanistan, have called Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, as their new leader instead of Taliban’s supreme leader Mullah Omar who the IMU militants believe can no longer be the leader according to Sharia as he has not been seen for about 13 years.

Urgeni has reportedly said in the video that in retaliation to arrest of female IMU supporters, they have taken 30 Afghan soldiers captive, which they warned to behead if the Afghan government didn’t meet their demand.

The Afghan government officials, however, are yet to comment in this regard.

The IMU militants are said to be operating in the some unsafe areas in northern Afghanistan.

A senior US official said that Washington might extend the stay of American troops in Afghanistan beyond 2016.

At a time when most of the US officials are stressing on withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, the senior National Security Council official, Jeff Eggers, said that option to extend the stay of troops in 2017 is open for discussion.

The New York Times quoted Eggers as saying, “However, it still remains the intent to consolidate and complete the retrograde down to a Kabul-based security cooperation office mission in 2017.”

According to military terminology, retrograde is a process of troops and material withdrawal.

He expressed optimism over future of Afghanistan and said that ties with between Kabul and Washington are going in the right direction. Obama and President Ghani have started discussing the Afghan government’s desire for further flexibility in the US withdrawal plans for next year, he added.

Spokeswoman for the National Security Council, Bernadette Meehan, said the US President Barack Obama is firmly standing on his plans to limit the role of troops to only embassy after 2016.

Eggers’s statement gives a glimpse into uncertainty within the Obama administration as the US authorities are confused over timeframe of troops’ withdrawal and their duties.

Gossips in Washington indicate that the United States might consider revamping strategy to end the ongoing war in Afghanistan. However, analysts say that with bullets the US could not end the war but through peace efforts only. Recently, the Taliban denied talking to the Afghan government. The insurgent group said that it was annoyed by the Obama’s recent decision to delay pullout of the US troops.

Foreign and Afghan political and military affairs experts are not so optimistic about role of the US troops in post-2014 Afghanistan. They say that when large number of foreign troops could not defeat the insurgents then how could few thousand troops will do this job.