ISIL militants abduct and kill 30 in Afghanistan

Militants linked to ISIL abducted and killed around 30 civilians, including children, in central Afghanistan on Wednesday, raising concerns about the group’s expanding presence beyond its eastern stronghold.

KABUL // Militants with suspected links to ISIL abducted and killed around 30 civilians, including children, in central Afghanistan on Wednesday, raising concerns about the group’s expanding presence beyond its eastern stronghold.

The massacre occurred late on Tuesday north of Firoz Koh, the capital of Ghor province, with the local government calling it a revenge attack after an ISIL commander was killed.

ISIL, which controls territory across Syria and Iraq and is making steady inroads in Afghanistan, has so far not officially claimed responsibility for the attack.

“Our security forces with the help of locals conducted an operation and killed a Daesh commander yesterday. Daesh fighters in return abducted around 30 villagers, mostly shepherds,” Ghor governor Nasir Khazeh said.

“Their dead bodies were found by local people this morning.”

Abdul Hameed Nateqi, a Ghor provincial council member said the assailants were self-proclaimed supporters of ISIL.

The killings underscore unravelling security in Afghanistan as the resurgent Taliban continue a push into urban centres 15 years after they were toppled from power.

ISIL fighters have been trying to expand their presence in Afghanistan, winning over sympathisers, recruiting followers and challenging the Taliban on their own turf, primarily in the country’s east.

In March, the Afghan president Ashraf Ghani announced that they had been defeated after local security forces claimed victory in a months-long operation against the group.

But ISIL militants have continued to launch deadly strikes in the country.

The Afghan government is currently in the middle of an operation backed by Nato air strikes against ISIL in Nangarhar province.

Nato said the group’s influence was waning as it steadily lost territory, with fighters largely confined to two or three districts in Nangarhar from around nine in January.

“Right now we see them [ISIL] very focused on trying to establish their caliphate inside Afghanistan,” John Nicholson, the top US and Nato commander in the country, said on Sunday.

“Of course with our Afghan partners we have been able to reduce that territory significantly and inflict heavy casualties on them.”

In July, ISIL claimed responsibility for twin explosions that ripped through crowds of Shiite Hazaras in Kabul, killing at least 85 people and wounding more than 400 others.

The bombings marked the deadliest single attack in Kabul since the Taliban were ousted from power in a 2001 US-led invasion. The killings sparked an avalanche of global condemnation, with the United Nations labelling the direct assault on civilians a war crime.

The Taliban have so far not officially commented on the Ghor killings.

The militant group, which has stepped up nationwide assaults on the western-backed government, is not generally known to launch attacks directly targeting civilians.

However, Abdul Hai Khateby, the spokesman for the provincial governor, said he is convinced the militants behind the attacks and abductions were a renegade Taliban group that had sworn allegiance last year to Afghanistan’s ISIL affiliate.

“The group is former Taliban who just a year ago announced their support to their Islamic State group and changed their white flag to black,” Mr Khateby said from Ghor.

The civilians who were abducted are all poor people from the area, mainly villagers and shepherds, and there were even children among those taken, he said.

He said that the victims’ families and relatives, along with other residents of Ghor, held a protest rally near the governor’s office in Firoz Koh on Wednesday.

The demonstrators denounced the government, which they said cannot protect the local population.

“The locals were so angry and they were throwing stones toward the governor’s building,” he said. No one was hurt in the protest, which later ended with the help of tribal leaders who mediated between the crowd and the authorities.

Mr Ghani’s office strongly condemned the attack in Ghor, saying that “once again, the enemies of the Afghan people carried out another attack on civilians and killed innocent people”.

Amnesty International denounced the Ghor killings as a “horrendous crime”.

“The victims and their families deserve justice,” Amnesty said, urging Kabul to bring the perpetrators to justice.

* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press