Women among alleged ISKP members arrested in Faryab

Taliban arrest alleged ISKP members, including women, in Faryab

Sources in Maymana city, capital of the northern Faryab province, confirmed to KabulNow that the Taliban forces have arrested three men, four women, and a number of children on charges of having membership with the Islamic State – Khurasan Province (ISKP) from a house in the 3rd district of Maymana.

The Taliban’s special forces arrested these suspected ISKP members on Thursday night after destroying the entry gate of the house they were residing in.

These sources detailed that the Taliban forces also seized magnetic bombs, suicide vests, hand-made bombs during the night raid, and destroyed the whole house with the seized explosives.

Meanwhile, local Taliban authorities confirmed that they have arrested three people along with some magnetic bombs.

Afghanistan has recently witnessed an increase in Taliban’s operations against the alleged ISKP members in the capital Kabul, Balkh, and Faryab provinces.

Early on Saturday’s morning, the Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed that its forces carried out night raids in three separate targets in Mazar-e-Sharif, capital city of the northern Balkh province, killing a number of ISKP members and seizing their weapons.

This comes after the ISKP claimed two latest deadly attacks in the city, including the one killed Taliban’s powerful governor for Balkh who was the group’s highest official to be killed since the group returned to power in August 2021.

Only two days after the attack on Taliban governor, an ISKP-claimed bombing killed three people, including two journalists and wounded 18 others in the same city.

The increased Taliban’s operations against ISKP targets and ISKP’s attacks in Mazar-e-Sharif also resonate with the claim by the Russian General and the Chief of the Joint Staff of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), Colonel General Anatoly Sidorov, who said the terrorist outfit had amassed up 6,500 members in Afghanistan, mostly in northern part of the country.