Thursday, November 18, 2021
Criticism of the Taliban’s actions
UN: More IS attacks in Afghanistan
Although the Taliban have been fighting the Islamic State for years, it seems to have spread again since they came to power in Afghanistan. The number of IS attacks is increasing. The United Nations is also concerned about the nature of the Taliban’s response.
The UN have warned against the Islamic State (IS) terrorist militia exerting influence in Afghanistan. The militant Islamist Taliban, which has ruled the country since mid-August, could not have contained the expansion of IS, said Deborah Lyons, the UN special envoy for Afghanistan, the UN Security Council, in New York. The influence of IS was once limited to a few provinces and Kabul, now the militia seem to be present and increasingly active in almost all provinces.
The number of attacks that IS claimed for itself has increased significantly. In 2020 there were 60, this year already 334. ISIS continues to attack Shiites in the country, Lyons said. The Taliban’s actions against ISIS are worrying insofar as they seem to rely heavily on extrajudicial imprisonment and the killing of suspected ISIS members. “This area deserves more attention from the international community.”
After the withdrawal of international NATO troops, the Taliban had conquered large parts of Afghanistan. On August 15, they entered the capital Kabul without a fight and have been ruling ever since. The army and police fell apart, and representatives of the previous government fled. The Taliban, who have fought ISIS since it appeared in Afghanistan in early 2015, are confronted with numerous problems, such as ensuring security in the country. In the past few weeks, IS had carried out attacks with many dead on mosques in cities such as Kunduz and Kandahar and on the military hospital in Kabul.