KABUL – The US military has rejected Russia’s claim about the strength ofDaesh or Islamic State fighters in Afghanistan as exaggerated, askingMoscow and Tehran to support the Afghan government instead ofthe Taliban rebels.
Russia has claimed the number of Daesh fighters runs into the thousands inAfghanistan, but US and NATO link> forces topcommander in Kabul Gen. John Nicholson said they were only 1500.
Talking to reporters in Kabul on Saturday, Gen. Nicholson urged Russia andIran to support the Kabul government, not the Taliban, to help defeat IS inthe country.
Moscow has recently accused Washington of ‘intentionally’ downplaying thespread of IS militants in the country.
“The numbers that are spread about the number of Daesh fighters by Russiais grossly exaggerated. It is around 1,500,” Nicholson said, using theArabic acronym for IS.
The general said that IS militants were operating in parts of the easternAfghan provinces of Nangarhar and Kunar and maintained a “pocket” in thenorthern Jawzjan province.
He said that Afghan forces, backed by US counterterrorism troops andairpower, were re attacking all three of the locations.
“We have cut their numbers in half over the last two years. We have killedtheir ‘amirs’ (chiefs), we have reduced their territory, again, we havedriven their fighters out of parts of the country,” explained the general,who also commands NATO’s Afghan military mission.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, while speaking in Moscow, assertedthat thousands of IS terrorists are present in northern and eastern Afghanregions and are being joined by militants fleeing Syria and Iraq.