ISIS Poses a Growing Threat to New Taliban Government in Afghanistan
The New York Times
The Taliban takeover was supposed to bring an end to war, the new government promised. But a growing insurgency is upending security and raising alarms for the international community.
JALALABAD, Afghanistan — Aref Mohammad’s war against the Islamic State ended earlier this fall when his unit of Taliban fighters was ambushed by the terrorist group in eastern Afghanistan. A bullet shattered his femur, leaving him disabled and barely able to walk, never mind fight.
But for the Taliban movement he served under, now the government of Afghanistan, the war against the Islamic State was just beginning.
“If we knew where they were from, we would pursue them and destroy them,” Mr. Mohammed, 19, said from his hospital bed in Jalalabad, the capital of Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar Province where the Islamic State has maintained a presence since 2015.
