KABUL – Over 167 Daesh operatives were killed and 50 others wounded in theeastern province of Nangarhar and Laghman over the past nine days,according to press releases issued by the Afghan security institutions,TOLO News has reported.

While the total number of Daesh fighters in Afghanistan is estimated to beover 2,000, lawmakers in the lower house of parliament have said that ifthe figures of Daesh fatalities, issued by government, were true, then theinsurgent group should have been eliminated by now.

But, the governor of Nangarhar province still insists that hundreds ofDaesh fighters have been eliminated over the past few months.

Based on a TOLOnews report, over 167 Daesh fighters have been killed in theeastern regions of the country over the past nine months and 50 others werewounded.

The statistics about Daesh fatalities are for Nangarhar, Kunar and Laghmanprovinces.

“Maybe the figure is not right, but the fact is hundreds of Daesh fightershave been killed and hundreds of others were wounded; the important thingis that Daesh bases were also destroyed,” said Nangarhar governor GulabMangal.

According to government sources, during this period over 15 Daesh fighterswere arrested by the security forces. Thirteen of them were arrested inKabul.

But government says that currently Daesh fighters are active in Nangarhar,Kunar, Laghman, Nuristan, Faryab, Sar-e-Pul and Jawozjan provinces.

“Unfortunately the government has not provided an exact figure about thestatistics and activities of the opponents in the country,” said militarycommentator Jawed Kohistani.

“They are providing deceptive and fake statistics which are not based onreality,” said MP Jaffar Mahdawi.

“If we add the government figures, this will total thousands of peoplewhich is far more than the number of fighters serving in their ranks,” saidMP Mahmoud Sulaimankhail.

Afghan Ministry of Interior (MoI) says that currently there are about 2,000Daesh operatives active in the country.

“The statistics now show that one to two thousand Daesh fighters exist inAfghanistan, we are trying to eliminate all members of the group,” said MoIspokesman Najib Danish.

Recently Zamir Kabulov, Russia’s special envoy to Afghanistan said howeverthat there are about 10,000 Daesh fighters in Afghanistan. But Afghanofficials rejected the figure.

But, the Afghan government says that Daesh is not a serious threat toAfghanistan, arguing that all major attacks are carried out in the countryby the Haqqani terror network under the name of Daesh.

On December, Chief of Army Staff General Mohammad Sharif Yaftali rejectedthe recent figure issued by Zamir Kabulov about Daesh fighters in thecountry as fake and baseless.

“We confirm the presence of up to 2,000 Daesh fighters in Afghanistan. Mr.Kabulov is sick and it is his habit to exaggerate things,” Yaftali toldlawmakers in the Wolesi Jirga, Lower House of Parliament.

“Russia was among the first to be sounding the alarms in connection withthe emergence of Daesh in Afghanistan…. Daesh has significantly increasedits power in the country recently. According to our estimates, the numberof militants exceeds 10,000 and continues to grow, particularly due to newfighters arriving from Syria and Iraq,” Kabulov said.