At least four foreign militants affiliated to Daesh insurgents were killed in drone strikes carried out by foreign forces in Nangarhar province, provincial governor spokesman Attaullah Khogyani said on Friday to tolonews.com.

Khogyani said the drone strikes were conducted in Bandr Khor area in Achin district where four foreign insurgents – including Tajikistan and Pakistan citizens – were killed.

He said no casualty was inflicted to civilians in the airstrikes.

This comes after local officials in Nangarhar last week said they are concerned about a return of Daesh militants in parts of the province which were cleared of the militant group last year.

A Taliban insurgent was killed along with his four sons in an explosion triggered by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) which had made for an attack, like reported by khaama.com

According to the local officials, the incident took place in Qosh Tapa area.

Provincial governor’s spokesman Zabiullah Amani confirmed that IED went off prematurely in the residence of the Taliban militan.

The Taliban militants group has not commented regarding the report so far.

Taliban militants and insurgents belonging to other militant groups are frequently using Improvised Explosive Device (IED) as the weapon of their choice to target the security forces and government officials.

However, in majority of such attacks, the ordinary civilians are targeted as the anti-government armed militants are accused of incurring the most casualties to the civilians.

The  United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said late in October last year that the mission has documented 8,397 conflict-related civilian casualties (2,562 deaths and 5,835 injured) between 1 January and 30 September,  representing a one per cent decrease compared to the same period in 2015.

Ground engagements remained the leading cause of civiliancasualties, followed by suicide and complex attacks, and improvised explosive devices (IEDs), UNAMA said, adding that the anti-Government Elements caused 61 per cent of civilian casualties – 1,569 civilian deaths and 3,574 injured (5,143 total civilian casualties).

At least 31 terrorists belonging to the notorious Haqqani terrorist network have been arrested in Southeastern Khost province, like reported by khaama.com .

The Afghan Intelligence, National Directorate of Security (NDS), said the militants apprehended by the intelligence operatives, were operating in two different groups led by the terrorist network.

NDS further added that the militants were arrested during the two separate military operations.

According to NDS, the militants were involved in various terrorist activities in Khost province.

The National Directorate of Security also added that the intelligence operatives confiscated 2 motorcycles, 50 magnetic bombs, 6 hand grenades, 18 RPG rockets, 36 boxes of heavy machine gun, 5 boxes of AK-47 rifle ammunition, 80 AK-47 rifle magazines, and 3 vehicles used by the militants without having registration plate numbers.

Haqqani network was formed in the late 1970s by Jalaluddin Haqqani. The group is allied with al-Qaida and the Afghan Taliban and cooperates with other terrorist organizations in the region.

The network is accused of staging numerous cross-border attacks from their base in North Waziristan, including the 19-hour siege at the US Embassy in Kabul in September 2011.

It is considered the most lethal insurgent group targeting the NATO-led coalition security forces and Afghan personnel in Afghanistan.

The US Department of State designated the HQN as a Foreign Terrorist Organization on September 7, 2012.

At least 37 Taliban insurgents including 8 key leaders of the group were killed during the joint military operations in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) said according to khaama.com .

The operations were conducted in Kunar, Kapisa, Uruzgan, Herat, Kunduz, Baghlan, and Helmand provinces.

According to a statement by MoD, at least 14 militants were also wounded and 3 others including Pakistani nationals were arrested.

The 8 key Taliban leaders were killed in Musa Qala district and have been identified as Mullah Tahir who was responsible for the financing of the group, Haji Nasir who was recruiting for the group, Haji Khadem who was in command of the Red Unit of the Taliban, Haji Rouhani, Taliban’s shadow district chief for Marjah, Haji Lala, Taliban’s shadow district chief for Nawzad, Haji Kamil, commander of the Red Unit for Nahr-e-Saraj, Haji Khalid, Taliban’s shadow deputy governor for Uruzgan, Mullah Sadiq Agha, Taliban’s military chief for Kandahar and Helmand.

The statement further added that two Pakistani insurgents were also among the 36 killed in the operations in Helmand province.

The ministry also added that 4 hideouts of the Taliban group were also destroyed in the operations in Greshk district.

Another militant was killed in Tagab district of eastern Kapisa province and another militant was wounded.

The man suspected of carrying out the New Year’s Eve attack on a nightclub in Istanbul was trained in Afghanistan, the city’s governor says, according to bbc.com.

Vasip Sahin said the man, named earlier as Uzbek national Abdulkadir Masharipov, was believed to have entered Turkey in January 2016.

Mr Sahin said the suspect had confessed to the attack and that his fingerprints matched those found at the scene.

Thirty-nine people died in the attack on the Reina club with dozens wounded.

Citizens of Israel, France, Tunisia, Lebanon, India, Belgium, Jordan and Saudi Arabia were among the victims.

So-called Islamic State (IS) said it was behind the attack, saying it was revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria.

Police arrested the man on Monday evening at the home of a Kyrgyz friend in Istanbul, Turkish media reported. The friend was also reportedly detained, along with three women.

Mr Sahin said that contrary to earlier reports, the man’s four year-old son was not with him when he was caught.

Police also seized pistols, ammunition and foreign currency in the raid, Mr Sahin added.

Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov said his forces had detained more than 50 insurgents linked to the Daesh militant group, completing a major security operation, according to gulftoday.ae.

Kadyrov wrote on Instagram on Sunday that security forces had captured an armed group co-ordinated by a Chechen fighter located in Syria, with the latest arrests taking place in various locations on Saturday.

“Now the whole group of bandits has been neutralised and more than 50 members have been brought to police stations,” Kadyrov said,

He also posted a video of himself speaking to a group of the captured men in Chechen.

The Moscow-back leader of the North Caucasus region called the operation — planned since last summer — “a big success for the law enforcement agencies.”

The Russian North Caucasus is one of the major sources of foreign militants fighting in Syria and Iraq.

The Chechen leader said police on Saturday detained several participants of the armed group including an “especially dangerous terrorist” named as Imran Datsayev who threw a hand grenade but was captured alive.

He said Datsayev testified that he received orders from Daesh to kill a police officer and had killed a police sergeant last November.

Russia fought two brutal separatist wars over the past two decades in Chechnya but the region has been largely pacified under Kadyrov’s iron-fisted rule.

A dwindling group of insurgents are still fighting the authorities in Chechnya and across the volatile North Caucasus, and sporadically launch eye-catching attacks.

Gul Bibi, an Afghan grandmother well into her eighties, never expected to become a fighter. But now she is one of more than a hundred women in Afghanistan’s northern Jawzjan province who have taken up arms against Islamist militants, like reported by thenews.com.pk .

Nearly all of the women have lost a husband, son or brother to the Taliban or the newly active Islamic State in the province bordering Turkmenistan. “I lost nine members of my family. The Taliban and Daesh (Islamic State) killed my five sons and four nephews,” Bibi said by phone from Jawzjan.

“I have taken up arms to defeat the terrorists so other people’s sons won’t get killed.”

Determined to protect their families, the women approached a local police commander, Sher Ali, in December and asked him for guns and ammunition.

“They came to me and said that if I didn’t provide them with weapons they would kill themselves — before Daesh or the Taliban could,” Ali told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

The women are not a properly structured group, he said; they have no uniform and have not received any military training other than how to point a gun at the enemy and shoot.

On Dec 25, Islamic State fighters attacked Garmjar village and killed five civilians, burned down about 60 houses and forced 150 families to flee, he said by instant messenger.

A woman in her twenties, who did not want to give her name, said her husband and many other family members had been killed by the Taliban.

Now she is fighting back, she said. “I hit the Taliban with this PK (machine gun), and the Taliban fled. Most of the their men died. I will stand against Daesh and will hit them too,” she said by phone from Jawzjan.

The women fighters are not registered with the army or police and the government has not licensed their weapons, Abdul Hafiz Khashi, head of the security department of Jawzjan police, was reported as saying in the Afghan media last week.

Although local police have cautiously welcomed the new defence force, he said, the rag-tag women’s unit has raised concerns among higher authorities.

“We do not support any armed group, unless they come under one of our forces,” Najib Danish, the deputy spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, said from Kabul.

“We hope they join the Afghan security forces, so we can help them as part of our troops,” he said.

But the women accuse the Afghan army of failing to protect their families from the militants.

“First they killed my brother, then they killed my cousin, my uncle and my brother-in-law,” said Zarmina, another woman fighter. “Now that I have taken up arms, I am going to fight to the death.”

Mariam lost three members of her family in the Islamic State attack on Garmjar village in December. She fled to Qush Tepa and joined the women fighters.

“Daesh came, hit us, abused us, killed our people and burned about a hundred houses. They didn’t leave anything for us. They killed three members of my family. They wanted to burn us, but we fled and came here,” she said by phone. “When you have nothing left in your life, you will take up weapons and fight to the death.”

At least 13 seminary teachers were abducted by the loyalists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group in eastern Nangarhar province, local officials said Sunday to khaama.com .

The officials further added that the incident took place in Haska Mina district after a group of ISIS militants stormed into a religious school in Deh Bala area.

A local official speaking on the condition of anonymity confirmed that the 13 abducted teachers were taken to an unknown location.

District administrative chief Sazwali confirmed the abduction of the teachers speaking to VOA’s Afghanistan service.

The loyalists of the terror group have not commented regarding the report so far.

This comes as the loyalists of the terror group torched at least 65 houses in Kot district which was once under the control of the terror group.

Provincial governor’s spokesman Ataullah Khogyani confirmed the incident and said no casualties were incurred to the local residents but an official in Kot said the loyalists of the terror group torched the houses of those who refused to pledge allegiance to them.

The latest movements by ISIS loyalist in Nangarhar come as the terror group received major blows during the counter-terrorism operations during the recent months.

Both the Afghan and US forces conducted regular strikes against the loyalists of the terror group in this province.

The increased raids, usually involving drone strikes, by the US forces followed a broader role granted by the Obama administration earlier last year.

The broader role was granted amid concerns that the loyalists of the terror group are attempting to expand foothold in the country and turn the eastern Nangarhar province into a regional operational hub for its fighters.