MAIMANA - First Vice-President Gen. Abdur Rashid Dostum, currently on a visit to Farah province, has said some internal and foreign circles are trying to send 7,500 Daesh, or Islamic State (IS), rebels to northern Afghanistan.
He said the IS militants being sent to north the included Chechen, Uzbek, Tajik, Iraqi, Syrian, Lebanese and Libyan fighters. Some regional intelligence agencies were trying to implement their plan before spring, he alleged.
“The infiltration of Daesh militants into Afghanistan is a project, but we don’t know the motive behind it and the location from where they would sneak,” the former Uzbek warlord commented.
Speaking to security officials and public uprising representatives of Faryab and Jawzjan provinces, Dostum said: “We should be fully prepared to prevent this project from being implemented; we should strengthen our ranks.”
The VP is in Faryab province to break the Taliban’s siege of a battalion of the 209thShaheen Military Corps in Ghormach district, which fell to the insurgents a week ago. He also plans to spearhead an offensive to regain control of the district.
The VP claimed the sale of military equipment and weapons to the Taliban was one of the reasons why remote parts of districts had collapsed. Also accompanied by two prosecutors from Kabul, Dostum said they had assessed the fall of Ghormach and the officials responsible would be taken to task.
Ghormach district would be fully cleared of militants and a report of operations against the rebels shared with President Ashraf Ghani, he concluded. (Pajhwok)