On Sunday, five civilians were killed by a roadside bomb outside the Eid Gah mosque. Although, no claim of the attack was made, suspicion fell on ISIS. Bilal Karimi, a Taliban spokesperson, said three suspects were arrested.
Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid, who was at the mosque attending his mother’s memorial service, said that Taliban forces raided an ISIS operations center in the northern neighborhood of Khair Khana.
Mujahid did not comment on the number of ISIS insurgents killed or if any Taliban fighters were wounded in the raid.
Since the Taliban takeover in mid-August, ISIS has ramped up attacks against its enemy in eastern Afghanistan, but movements show that ISIS might be inching toward the capital.
For more original reporting by the Associated Press, see below.
During their 20-year insurgency, the Taliban had frequently carried out bombing and shooting attacks but are now faced with trying to contain rival militants using the same methods.
The growing security challenges come at a time of an economic meltdown, as the Taliban struggle to run the country without the massive foreign aid given to U.S.-backed government they toppled.
ISIS reemerged in Afghanistan in 2020 after being weakened by a heavy U.S. bombing campaign directed against them in the eastern part of the country in 2019. They were blamed for a horrific attack in 2020 on a maternity hospital that killed 24 people, including newborn babies.
Earlier this year, they were held responsible for a brutal attack on a school in Afghanistan’s mostly Shiite neighborhood of Dasht-e-Barchi that killed more than 80 students.
ISIS had claimed responsibility for the bombing on August 26 that killed more than 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. military personnel outside the Kabul airport, where thousands of people were trying to reach the airport to escape Taliban rule.
