Afghan army kills commander of ISIL affiliate

Hafiz Wahidi is the second militant commander with links to the militant group to be killed in Helmand.

KABUL // The Afghan army killed a militant commander who had claimed allegiance to the ISIL extremist group, the ministry of defence said on Monday.

In an operation in the southern Helmand province, long a hotbed of insurgent activity, Hafiz Wahidi and nine of his men were killed, the ministry said.

Wahidi is the second militant commander with links to the militant group to be killed in Helmand.

His uncle, Adbul Rauf Khadim, was killed in a drone strike in February.

Zamen Ali, a senior Afghan army officer in southern Afghanistan, said that Wahidi took over the anti-government militia Khadim had commanded following his death.

Khadim was a former Taliban commander and Guantanamo detainee who had switched allegiance and aligned his followers with the ISIL group, which controls about a third of Iraq and Syria in a self-declared caliphate.

He had allegedly set up an ISIL recruiting network across southern Afghanistan, raising fears the militant group was seeking to expand its operations in Afghanistan following the end of Nato forces’ 13-year combat mission at the end of 2014.

But ISIL has never acknowledged having representatives in Afghanistan, and a senior Taliban commander said that Khadim had “not formally joined ISIL and ISIL had not recognised him”.

Officials have voiced concern about ISIL’s presence in Afghanistan though the group’s real strength in the country is unknown.

President Ashraf Ghani has mentioned the threat posed by the group in recent speeches and is due to visit Washington next week, where he is expected to request an extension of the American military presence as his government battles the Taliban, Al Qaeda and possibly ISIL on a number of fronts.

Monday’s operation in Helmand appears to have been part of a major military offensive against the Taliban and other insurgent groups ahead of the warm-weather fighting season.

Nato forces, who remain in the country in a limited training mission, were not involved in the latest operation, the ministry said.

After being cleared from a number of its strongholds in the past two months, the Taliban has launched a ferocious backlash with suicide bombings and attacks on police and civilians.

A suicide car bomb attack in Lashkar Gah, Helmand’s capital, killed two civilians and one policeman, the governor’s spokesman Omar Zwak said.

Another two civilians and two policemen were wounded.

* Associated Press and Agence France-Presse