Hafiz Saeed is a terrorist leader designated by both the United Nations and the United States, the Trump administration has said, after a Pakistani court ordered the release of the Mumbai terror attack mastermind and JuD chief from house arrest, like reported by thehindubusinessline.com.

The head of the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) outfit, who carries a bounty of USD 10 million announced by the US for his role in terror activities, has been under detention since January this year.

The US is aware of media reports that a Pakistani court ordered the release of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) leader Saeed from house arrest, a State Department spokesperson told PTI when asked about the decision of the Judicial Review Board of Punjab province which refused to extend his detention.

Responding to a question, the State Department was quick to express its displeasure over the potential release of Saeed from house arrest.

In May 2008, the United States Department of the Treasury designated Saeed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under Executive Order 13224, the spokesperson said. “Saeed was also individually designated by the United Nations under UNSCR 1267 (UN Security Council Resolution) in December 2008 following the November 2008 Mumbai attack,” the official said.

The LeT and several of its front organisations, leaders, and operatives remain under both State Department and Treasury Department sanctions, the State Department official noted. “The US reiterates its stance that the LeT is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organisation responsible for the death of hundreds of innocent civilians in terrorist attacks, including a number of American citizens,” the spokesperson told PTI.

The JuD is believed to be the front organisation for the banned LeT which is responsible for carrying out the 2008 Mumbai terror attack in which 166 people, including six Americans, were killed.

Afghan intelligence operatives have killed 21 members of the Pakistan-linked Haqqani Network including five key commanders of the group, the agency claimed in a statement according to ariananews.af.

“Five key commanders of the Haqqani Network were killed and three others arrested during a special operation conducted by the NDS special units over a large terror hub of the Haqqani network in Nerkh district of Maidan Wardak province,” the National Directorate of Security (NDS) said.

The five key members of the group were identified as Qari Hamidullah also known as Qurishi, Qari Nudrat, Qari Nasratullah, Mawlawi Ghulam and Qari Hamza who was the intelligence chief of the group in the province.

According to the statement, at least another 16 members of the group were also killed during the raid.

“During the operation, a center of the enemy was destroyed and a large number of weapons and ammunitions were also seized,” the statement added.

The Taliban group has not made a comment about the report yet.

The Haqqani Network, a major Taliban subgroup, is based in Pakistan’s tribal agency of North Waziristan, and operates in eastern, southeastern, and central Afghanistan. Afghan and U.S. officials believe that the Haqqani Network is supported by Pakistan’s military and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate.

The Network has carried out a series of high-profile terror attacks in Afghanistan killing hundreds of people including government employees and civilians.

On Sunday, 19 November 2017, downtown Srinagar – the traditional hub of Kashmir’s Azadi movement – witnessed the first massive funeral procession of a militant since 1990 without the green-coloured flags. There were no trademark slogans of “Jeevay Jeevay Pakistan” either, save some slogans for Azadi, but no Pakistani national flags that had dominated Kashmir after Burhan Wani’s death from Uri to Kishtwar, like reported by thequint.com.

The slain militant Mugees Ahmad Mir’s coffin was draped in a black Al-Qaeda/ISIS flag and the carriage bedecked with the black banners of the two ultra-radical jihadist outfits.

In early 1990s, there was a fierce competition of grabbing the spaces between the pioneers Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), which had green, red and white colours on its flag, and the formidable Hizbul Mujahideen.

Finally, Islamic State’s fighters are near to total defeat in Syria and Iraq. First, they lost Mosul —Islamic State’s former de facto capital in July this year and now they have lost Raqqa.  Just three years back in 2014, the ISIS supreme leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi emerged from the pulpit of the Great Mosque of Al-Nuri in Mosul and delivered a sermon to his followers as the new caliph. Upon this, up to 30,000 Jihadists from all over the world travelled to Syria to join the IS’s hands. During ISIS’ occupation of Mosul, the city remained a significant pillar of the group’s organisational structure and therefore remained strategically vital. Since the initiation of war by US and Russian led coalition forces against Daish militants, the terrorist organisation has lost a major part of its territory and is still struggling to defend the remaining few areas of its caliphate with significant jihadi manpower. Moreover, it has lost more than sixty thousands militants including 25000 foreign fighters since 2014. With the liberation of Mosul, the dream of IS to build an actual ‘Islamic state’ is being decimated. Having said that, the remnants, for seeking time and space to reorganise themselves, may flee to remote areas. The effectiveness of the group’s dissemination among different radical groups across the globe implies that the chances of its growing back cannot be ruled out.

Ostensibly, the defeat of IS from the surface seems firm but its members would likely opt for underground resistance—‘ISIS 2.0’. The surviving militants are likely to prefer moving toward unstable areas and the so-called declared wilayas (provinces) so that they could regroup themselves safely. However, the major challenge that still lurks is of the foreign fighters fleeing back to their home countries whilst retaining the hardcore extremist ideology of the group. Recently, the ISIS-Khurasan, which predominantly comprises of local militants, has not only intensified its activities in Afghanistan and Pakistan region, but also expanded their area of influence into the hinterlands of both the countries.  Although there are no signs of the presence of Arab fighters in the area under the banner of Daish, the Arab fighters along with the other foreign militants of the group may move to Afghanistan and Pakistan, due to the recent situation of Middle East in which ISIS is losing its ground rapidly. If this happens, there will be an addition of new multi-faceted challenges to the already unstable security environment in war-torn countries.

During last three years, the ISIS has trained many foreign fighters ideologically, militarily and technologically to handle and run the organisation. With the unstable caliphate slipping through its fingers, it is likely that the surviving personnel (who possess modern jihadi expertise) will spread in the surroundings. ISIS militants are often experts in employing cutting-edge war machinery and cunning tactics on social media to propagate their agenda, as well as creating financial resources to run the group. In the meanwhile, the group may also employ a virtual caliphate system in the absence of any physical structure so that its followers could be made hopeful of the resurgence of caliphate through a maintained connection with the organisation. For this purpose, the group has already achieved success in connecting its followers with one another through the internet across the globe. The multilingual electronic magazine of ISIS named ‘Rumiyah’, is widely circulated on the internet and considered to have stimulated its sympathisers, along with elaborating the methods of carrying out attacks to create panic and terror.

The Government of Pakistan still denies the presence of the ISIS-Khurasan in the country. Contrary to this, some government officials are seen to admit that many people from Pakistan have travelled to Syria to join the ISIS. In January 2016, Rana Sanaullah, the Law Minister of Punjab, said that about 100 people had left Pakistan for Syria to join the ISIS. At domestic level, some individuals have either been killed or apprehended by the law enforcement agencies. One potent faction of Pakistani Taliban, Jamat-ul-Ahrar, has pledged allegiance to ISIS in bolstering the ISIS-Khurasan Chapter. Moreover, some other Pakistani militant organizations like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi’s Al-Alami (LeJA), Tehreek-e-Khilafat (a Karachi based organization), and Jundullah have also pledged their allegiance to ISIS. The participation of some Pakistani extremist women is yet another stark reality. In this context, Al-Zikra Academy Network, Karachi, female students of Jamia-e-Hafsa, Islamabad, and Bushra Nework, Lahore, are the women’s religious centers believed to be involved in ISIS’ support for fund raising, recruitment and propagation of ideology. The inclination of local extremist groups toward ISIS is the major challenge for peace and security of the state.

For the last few years, ISIS has been actively expanding its sphere of influence in Pakistan, mainly in vulnerable areas like FATA and the neglected areas of Baluchistan and Sindh. With the coordination of local organisations like LeJA, Jamat-ul-Ahrar etc. the group has conducted deadly terrorist attacks across the country, including the attack on Sehwan Sharif shrine, Police Academy Quetta and the convoy of Senate’s Deputy Chairman Abdul Ghafoor Haideri. A few months back, the ISIS militants abducted two Chinese nationals from Quetta. In response, the law enforcement agencies raided the treacherous mountains of Mastung, a far flung area of Balochistan, and killed 15 ISIS militants to claim dismantling of Daish headquarter in Pakistan. Moreover, in July 2017, the Pakistan Army started ‘Operation Khyber-4’ in Rajgal Valley of Khyber Agency to stop Daish making inroads into areas bordering Afghanistan

The possibility of the return of Pakistani ISIS fighters back to their homeland after defeat in their strongholds of Mosul and then now in Raqqa, presents serious challenges to the state which is already marred by radicalisation, violent extremism and terrorism. Daish affiliate organizations already have their presence particularly in the insecure areas of the country like FATA, and some parts of Baluchistan and Sindh and even in Punjab. In addition to this, the group has also succeeded in the past to attract the urban population through its striking ideology. Recently, the officials of Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) Sindh revealed in a conference that the extremism and terrorism was shifting from madaris to universities. Moreover, they also revealed that the people from middle to elite classes have been influenced by the group’s ideology across Karachi. The teaching faculty as well as the students in some universities have also been reported to be involved in preaching Jihadi ideology, imparting training on manufacturing bombs, disseminating the propaganda literature, recruiting people and arranging financial resources for the organisation.

It is due to such accommodative arrangements back home that the fugitive Syrian jihadists see their return to Pakistan favourable. Under the prevailing situation when Pakistan is already faced with the menace of extremism, the threat of Daish in the country seems imminent and real. At this juncture, the success of IS in bolstering its organisation in Pakistan would exacerbate the security environment in the country that is already contaminated with religious extremism. In this scenario, the country needs to take effective and proactive counter-terrorism steps to deny the group any space in occupying the possible vulnerable spaces in physical as well as ideological domain across the country.

Seventy-five insurgents have been killed and 25 others wounded during an operation in the Shindand district of western Herat province, an official claimed on Monday according to pajhwok.com.

Jilani Farhad, the governor’s spokesman, told Pajhwok Afghan News the security forces conducted the operation codenamed “Azam Kahlid 21” in Sarayak, Mir Haidar, Deh Ali Bek, Deh Naw, Deh Pahlawan and Azizabad areas.

He said the 10-day offensive was carried out by Public Order Police, Afghan National Police, Border Police, Afghan National Army, Special Forces and NDS personnel. A dozen insurgents involved in disruptive activities were detained.

Farhad added: “The operation was aimed to eliminate the militant hideouts under the leadership of Mullah Najeebullah, Taliban’s shadow district chief, and some other areas also came under air attacks. Several commanders, including Mullah Samad, were killed.”

Four vehicles, two Humvee tanks, two pick-ups and a Fielder car belonging to the Taliban were also destroyed during the offensive, said Farhad. About six hideouts were also destroyed.

The Chief Executive of the Government of National Unity Abdullah Abdullah says the Taliban and Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group offshoot militants are conducting insurgency with a similar ideology, insisting that there is no difference between the two groups, like reported by khaama.com.

Speaking to reporters in a gathering hosted by VOA’s Afghanistan service, Abdullah said there is not much difference between the groups and both continue to incur losses to the Afghan people.

However, CEO Abdullah said the ISIS loyalists do not operate on large swathes of Afghanistan but the Taliban continue to operate in more provinces.

In other parts of his speech, Abdullah said the relations between Kabul and Islamabad remains strained, mainly due to the circumstances surrounding the fight against terror and the presence of terror sanctuaries.

According to Abdullah, the terrorists continue to maintain presence and safe havens on the side of the line in Pakistan which is one of the main reasons behind the deteriorating relations between Kabul and Islamabad.

He also added that the new US strategy for South Asia delivers a clear message to the region and those supporting the terror groups.

Abdullah said the government is optimistic regarding the environment of cooperation further boosted between the Afghan and foreign forces in the fight against terror after the new strategy was unveiled.

In regards to the India’s role in Afghanistan, Abdullah said the Afghan government supports Washington’s call to further increase New Delhi’s role in Afghanistan, insisting that the country has invested more than 2 billion Dollars in reconstruction of Afghanistan in the past 16 years.

NATO will have sufficient troops to accomplish its training mission in Afghanistan, the alliance chief says, ruling out a return to combat operations, like reported by pajhwok.com.

The alliance would meet Gen. John Nicholson’s demand for 16,000 troops to fill the training mission, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg promised in an interview on Wednesday.

He told the Associated Press the NATO troop level would rise from 13,000 to around 16,000.

“I’m absolutely confident that we will have sufficient forces when we move into 2018. We are still receiving pledges and announcements about more troop contributions from allies.”

However, the troops would not take part in combat operations, he explained, saying they would focus on training and assisting the Afghan security forces.

Stoltenberg acknowledged: “There’s still a lot of violence in Afghanistan but at the same time we’ve seen a lot of important. The Afghans are now able to respond every time the insurgents attack…”

An audio clip surfaced in Malayalam claiming to be from the Islamic State has called for financial help and war against India while living in the country, like reported by asiantribune.com

The male voice in the 10-minute clip liberally quotes from the Quran in an authentic Arabic pronunciation. It claims that it is the 50th audio clip from Daulatul Islam.

“You use your intellect. Poison them in food. Use trucks. Drive over them at Thirssur pooram or at Maha Kumbha Melam. IS Mujahideen are doing it in several parts of the world. In Las Vegas, one of our supporters killed many people at a music concert. At least you should try to derail a train. Or use a knife,” the clip said.

In Las Vegas, A “lone wolf” gunman carried out America’s deadliest mass shooting in a meticulously planned attack at a festival crowd of 22,000.

Police sources said the voice in the audio clip belongs to Rashid Abdullah of Kasaragod who left to join Islamic State in Yemen.

The clip has surfaced at a time Kerala police have said that about 100 people from the state are suspected to have joined the Islamic State. Quoting sources, PTI had reported that the Kerala Police had collected evidence in this regard, including over 300 voice clips and messages from WhatsApp, Telegram messaging applications and other social media platforms.

The clip in question says that Muslims should go for hijrah (migrate) from Darul Kufr (house of non-believers) to Darul Islam (house of believers). “If you are not able to do that despite your prayers and efforts, then you should financially support Daulatul Islam and Islamic State,” it says.

According to sources, this is the first time Islamic State is making an open call for an attack in India.

“Many are trying to finish IS and khilafat. We have been reduced to nothing in many parts. But, Daultaul Islam is still active and we will fight until the last man,” the clip adds.

When U.S. Marines entered the Afghan military’s operations control center at an airfield here in April, they found a scene of confusion.

Afghan officers were coordinating operations against Taliban insurgents using paper maps taped to the walls. They were uncertain of the locations of key mosques, hospitals, bridges — even their own ground troops, like reported by stripes.com.

The war was going badly in Helmand, one of Afghanistan’s most volatile provinces and the deadliest for international forces in 16 years of hostilities. Since the Marines left in 2014 as part of a U.S. military drawdown, Afghan forces were losing scores of troops every month and had watched the Taliban march up to the outskirts of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, lobbing rockets inside the airfield.

Seven months after a Marine-led task force returned, Helmand has become one of the few bright spots in the Afghan War, offering a blueprint for President Donald Trump’s troop surge, which will raise the number of American servicemembers training and advising Afghan soldiers and police from 11,000 to about 15,000.

At the outset, a few dozen Marines moved into a series of low-slung buildings at Bost airfield outside Lashkar Gah, which houses an Afghan army brigade, the provincial police headquarters and the regional military control center. The Marines cleared cobwebs and old clothes out of a storage room and converted it into a mess hall where they dine on military rations, or eggs and instant noodles Afghans bring from a local market.

Next door, separated by a chain-link fence, is the control center where Marines have helped Afghan officers replace static maps with Google Earth, plot civilian buildings and ground troops with multicolored icons, and process intelligence from the field.

“We’ve seen them exponentially increase their ability to manage the battle space because they can visualize it,” said said Maj. Paul Rivera, a Marine adviser from Houston. “It’s like going from being color-blind to seeing in color.”

By re-engaging in Helmand, Rivera added, “it’s like we turned the lights back on.”

The U.S. military’s Task Force Southwest, led by 300 Marine advisers, has revitalized Afghan forces and increased airstrikes during a sustained government offensive that has pushed the Taliban away from major towns and highways and eliminated the threat to Lashkar Gah, according to U.S. and Afghan officials.

While the Marines’ deployment to Helmand took shape in the last months of the Obama administration, their mission encompasses one of the main goals of Trump’s troop surge, which Pentagon officials say is to get U.S. mentors out of large bases and closer to where Afghans are fighting in order to have a greater impact on the battlefield.

“I think we’re doing what’s in the new strategy now, within the capability and capacity we have,” said Brig. Gen. Roger Turner, commander of the task force based at Camp Shorab, a small outpost next to the sprawling emptiness of Camp Leatherneck, an abandoned base that once housed more than 20,000 NATO troops.

Roughly one-third of Turner’s troops have previously served in the province, etched in Marine lore for the bloody battles fought here in 2010 and 2011. Some 350 Americans lost their lives helping Afghan forces secure key districts — only to see many fall back under Taliban influence after they withdrew.

The new mission is different. While U.S. special operations forces still conduct secret raids, the Marines in Helmand, like the rest of conventional U.S. troops in Afghanistan, don’t patrol highways or visit mud-walled villages anymore. They advise government troops from inside military bases, provincial offices and operations centers lined with monitors streaming surveillance footage.

That has meant far fewer U.S. military fatalities in Afghanistan — 13 this year compared with nearly 500 in 2010, when there were 10 times as many American troops here.

But in a bid to break what Pentagon officials have described as a stalemate in the 16-year war, the Trump administration has expanded military commanders’ authorities to conduct airstrikes and deploy advisory units farther into the field, potentially putting them at greater risk.

Trump has set no end date for the troop commitment and Pentagon planners have declined to specify the numbers or destinations of the extra U.S. forces. That is a reversal from the Obama administration, which announced its intention to pull all U.S. troops out by 2014 before abandoning that plan when security deteriorated.

“The enduring commitment to Afghanistan is hugely impactful to our partners, and I think to the population it’s the same thing,” Turner said.

“I think they want us to be here and they want us to help make things better here. And I think it’s had an impact on the enemy too, because now they can’t just wait us out.”

When Marines and British troops departed Helmand in October 2014, the Afghan army and police proved incapable of holding the Taliban at bay. Resources were slow to arrive from the capital, Kabul, and security forces complained of not being paid on time. Morale sank and desertions soared.

Crucially, without U.S. trainers, the Afghans could not request American airstrikes. Holed up inside checkpoints, they were easy targets for insurgents who see Helmand as their cash cow: home to the poppy fields that produce more than three-quarters of the world’s opium, the Taliban’s most important source of revenue.

The month before the Marines withdrew in 2014, 39 soldiers from the Afghan army’s 215th Corps in Helmand were killed in action, according to U.S. military figures. During the same month of the following year, that number soared to 115.

The commander of Afghan police in the province, Maj. Gen. Ghulam Daoud Tarakhel, saw his headquarters at Bost come under a steady barrage of rocket fire from insurgents poised at the city limits.

“We couldn’t even stand outside,” Tarakhel said. “Mortars would hit this spot from every side.”

A small Army-led task force deployed to Helmand last year and began reestablishing links with Afghan soldiers based next to Shorab. It soon became clear that the Afghan commander was a big part of the problem. Appointed to purge the ranks of “ghost soldiers” — who existed only on paper so that corrupt officials could pocket their salaries — the commander, Maj. Gen. M. Moein Faqir, was arrested early this year on charges including stealing money meant to buy food for his men.

The Marines rotated in with a simple mission: keep Lashkar Gah from falling to the Taliban. They came just as a new Afghan commander was installed.

Maj. Gen. Wali Mohammad Ahmadzai, a burly, no-nonsense officer with a thick mustache, quickly forged a close relationship with Turner. He sometimes joined the blue-eyed, square-jawed general for strategy sessions over dinner at the Marines’ cafeteria, armed with large discs of Afghan flatbread.

In May, Ahmadzai impressed the Marines when he rode at the front of a convoy of Afghan troops as they fought to dislodge insurgents from Marjah, the poppy-growing town where nearly 50 Americans died in a major 2010 battle. In the months that followed, Marines advised Afghan operations to push Taliban fighters out of districts surrounding Lashkar Gah.

In July, with American F-16 jets and Apache attack helicopters supplying airstrikes, Afghan soldiers and police recaptured Nawa, a large town south of Bost airfield. They took down Taliban flags and presented them to their Marine advisers as gifts.

“We have seen some good changes under my leadership,” Ahmadzai said. “Generals who weren’t capable of doing the job were removed. And because the Marines have come back and supported us, we have been able to clear all the main roads in the province.”

The provincial government has begun to reopen schools and clinics in Nawa. Unlike in the past, when Marines tried to install basic social services in liberated districts, commanders are leaving governance to Afghan officials.

“The focus is security and defeating the Taliban,” said Col. Matthew Reid, the task force’s deputy commander. “(Fixing) governance, corruption, narcotics — that comes later. First you need to win the fight.”

By aggressively attacking the Taliban, Reid said, the Afghans suffer fewer casualties. In the month ending Sept. 21, 36 Afghan soldiers in the Helmand-based corps were killed, the lowest total for that month in five years.

But the Afghans need American support to remain on the offensive. Pentagon officials say the troop increase will allow U.S. forces to reach beyond Afghan corps headquarters and into smaller bases to directly advise brigade and battalion leaders and coordinate more airstrikes.

Advisers have also helped the Afghans make better use of their burgeoning air assets, including surveillance drones.

One recent morning, two convoys of Afghan security forces traveling south toward Lashkar Gah came under fire from a house inside the village of Malgir. Inside a windowless, high-ceilinged room at an operations center near Shorab, Marines, Afghan officers, and American civilian contractors watched footage from a U.S.-made ScanEagle drone hovering above the village.

Once Afghan troops in the area determined the shooters’ location and that there were no civilians nearby, officers in the control room requested airstrikes, which were carried out by U.S. Apache helicopters. One of the shooters was killed, two were wounded and two escaped, said Afghan army Maj. Abdul Wakil.

“If it’s a steady target we can use an Afghan aircraft to strike them,” Wakil said. “If they are moving targets, we can use our Apaches.”

He shot a glance at the Marine major next to him and corrected himself: “I mean, the American Apaches.”

Afghans attribute their recent successes to the Marines. At a training facility outside Shorab, as recruits practiced infantry maneuvers in a dirt field, instructor Mir Ahmad Malangzai said that after he was injured in a roadside bomb blast last year, Americans trained him to teach a course in detecting explosives.

“It’s with the Marines’ support and cooperation that we’ve reached this level,” Malangzai said. “If they leave again, things will 100 percent be reversed.”

Commanders acknowledge that the task force’s young Marines, in particular, would rather be fighting insurgents themselves.

Marine Sgt. Andrew Comtois, adviser to Helmand’s fledgling sniper training program, served three tours in Iraq and deployed to Sangin in 2013, when Marines were beginning to pull back to Leatherneck. On his wrist, he wore a bracelet bearing the names of four friends who had been killed in Afghanistan.

“Being a sniper and being passionate, I would love to be back out there on the front lines fighting,” Comtois said. “But it’s not our fight anymore.”

He watched as a young Afghan soldier lay on the ground behind a rifle, aiming at a target painted on a trash can 110 yards away. When he arrived in Helmand last month, Comtois found that sniper students were given only 20 rounds of ammunition with which to practice, the result of supply shortages. Sometimes instructors didn’t set up targets, leaving students to aim their mock weapon into thin air.

“It’s a new process for them,” he said. “They’re still getting that discipline.”

Task force commanders expect that when they complete their deployment in early 2018, a larger group of Marines will follow.

“We’ve got a lot of blood, sweat and tears in the soil, a lot invested here,” Reid said. “If there’s a long-term strategy for Helmand to ensure that it’s a secure province where terrorists don’t have safe haven, the Marine Corps wants to be part of that solution.”