Terrorists affiliated with the Daesh Takfiri group have kidnapped at least 30 people, including women, during an attack in Afghanistan’s troubled eastern province of Nangarhar.
Afghanistan’s Khaama news service on Saturday quoted Attaullah Khogyani, the spokesman for Nangarhar, as saying that the terrorists launched coordinated attacks against local police checkpoints in the restive Kott district during the early hours of Friday.
He added that the terrorists also set fire to a number of houses in the district and killed at least three civilians, including a child, and wounded 12 others.
“They shot civilians and killed children with knives and took women with them,” said one resident.
The Afghan Local Police (ALP), however, managed to repel the attack, killing at least 30 terrorists and wounding 32 others in the clashes that ensued.
Back in June 11, Daesh militants also attacked the police headquarters in Dih Bala, another district in the province, and killed the district police chief along with four other officers. The government forces also managed to kill 13 terrorists during the fighting. Six other officers were also wounded and 13 militants were killed during the fighting.
Nangarhar has been witnessing a rise in the number of Daesh terrorists in some of its districts in recent months. The terror group’s stronghold is currently in the province, which borders Pakistan. It reportedly plans to establish a base of operations within the province’s mountainous terrain.
According to a mid-March report by the Afghan Defense Ministry, the terror group has killed more than 600 civilians in the country over the previous six months. It added that most of the victims were young people who had refused to join the ranks of the terror group mainly operating in eastern Afghanistan.
Daesh atrocities have also rendered 20,000 families internally displaced over the past year, it added.
Daesh, mainly active in Syria and Iraq, has been using a sophisticated social media campaign to woo the local militants who defect from the main Taliban militant group.
presstv.com
