Taliban kills 6 members of Islamic State

Six members of the Islamic State were killed by Taliban security forces in an overnight operation in Kabul, Afghanistan, according to a spokesman for the administration of the ruling party on Saturday.

The Islamic State members killed in the raid on their hideout were involved in two major attacks in recent weeks, one on a city mosque and the other on a tutoring institute in which dozens of female students were killed, said the spokesman, Qari Yusuf Ahmadi.

“They were the attackers of the Wazir Akbar Khan mosque and also … of Kaaj Institute,” said Ahmadi, who said one Taliban security force member was killed in the operation.

For either attack, no group took ownership.

53 individuals were killed in the explosion at the female education centre of the Kaaj Institute on September 30, the majority of them girls and young women.

On September 23, a blast near a mosque in Wazir Akbar Khan, a heavily protected neighbourhood that had housed a “Green Zone” of embassies and foreign force bases, resulted in at least seven fatalities and more than 40 injuries.

After decades of fighting, the Taliban claim they have concentrated on safeguarding the nation since taking power in 2021.

However, a number of explosions have recently jolted the nation’s capital and other urban centres, and the United Nations has warned that security is deteriorating.

The Taliban are enemies of the Afghan branch of the Islamic State, known as Islamic State Khorasan after a former name for the area.

In 2014, Islamic State-affiliated fighters first showed up in eastern Afghanistan and eventually spread to other regions.