KABUL, Afghanistan — A former Taliban
commander who had recently pledged allegiance to the Islamic State
militant group was killed in a military operation in Helmand Province on
Monday, according to Afghan officials and a tribal elder in the area.
Precise
details were unavailable. In announcing the death of the commander,
Mullah Abdul Rauf Khadim, the Afghan spy agency said that it had been
tracking him for a month, and that he and five of his men had been
killed in a “successful military operation” in the Kajaki district of
Helmand.
The
deputy governor of the region, Mohammad Jan Rasolyaar, said that the
actual strike that killed Mullah Khadim had come from an American drone.
A spokesman for the American-led military coalition in Afghanistan,
Col. Brian Tribus, confirmed that the coalition had conducted a
“precision strike” in Helmand that killed “eight individuals threatening
the force.” But American officials would not say who was targeted in
the strike or whether it was a part of the military operation against
Mr. Khadim.
If
confirmed, the strike against Mullah Khadim would be the first known
military operation undertaken against the Islamic State in Afghanistan,
more than 1,000 miles from the group’s home territory in Syria and Iraq.
In
the past few months, Mullah Khadim and a few other former Taliban
commanders in Afghanistan were said to have proclaimed their allegiance
to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS
or ISIL, and had begun seeking recruits. But the development seemed to
point less to a major expansion of the Islamic State than to a deepening
of internal divisions within the Taliban.
There
has been little evidence that the Islamic State's leadership has
operational control in any areas within Afghanistan, unlike in Syria and
Iraq, where the group announced its presence by storming towns and
killing Shiites and other religious minorities.
But
ISIS has announced its interest in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and
reportedly has sent envoys there to recruit. And in far-flung corners of
Afghanistan, local reports are circulating of mysterious groups of
foreign fighters, often flying black flags and believed to represent the
Islamic State.
The
accounts have mostly been difficult to confirm as they involved parts
of the country dominated by the Taliban beyond the government’s reach.
In at least one case, some of the government’s information about an
encampment of the fighters came from a passing shepherd.
But
Mullah Khadim’s decision to begin openly recruiting for a local cell of
the Islamic State under his command drew significant attention not only
in Kabul, but also in Washington. That was partly because he was a
former detainee at the Guantánamo Bay prison camp, and after his release
he became a high-enough commander in the Taliban to warrant making the
United Nations sanctions list.
According
to people who knew Mullah Khadim, he had become disillusioned with the
Taliban’s leadership, and openly doubted whether the Taliban’s reclusive
leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, was still alive.
A
man who said he was one of Mullah Khadim’s subcommanders claimed last
month that they had recruited about 300 fighters to join their branch of
the Islamic State. But the local Taliban commander said that Mullah
Khadim’s following amounted to fewer than a dozen longtime supporters
and that there was no evidence that the Islamic State was making any
gains in the area.
A
tribal elder, also from the Kajaki district, said that Mullah Khadim
and four others had been killed while returning from a livestock market,
where they had gone “to preach and encourage people to join Islamic
State” before an audience of hundreds.
Source : Indian Defense News
