MOSCOW – The Russian presidential envoy to Afghanistan says there areindications that the US military is allowing members of the Daesh Takfiriterrorist group, who have suffered serious defeats in Syria and neighboringIraq, to infiltrate Afghanistan.
“It’s noteworthy that the extremists themselves and weapons for them,according to numerous witness accounts, are often transferred to theterritory of Afghanistan by helicopters without identifying insignia,”Zamir Kabulov said on Thursday.
Kabulov added, “With the US and NATO fully controlling the skies overAfghanistan, there is every reason to believe they had a hand in that, orat least, did not hamper these flights, despite the fact that Washingtonand Brussels deny that.”
Last November, former Afghan President Hamid Karzai told Qatari al-Jazeeratelevision news network that the US is colluding with Daesh in Afghanistan,and allowing the Takfiris to flourish in his conflict-stricken country.
“In my view, under the full [US] presence, surveillance, military,political, intelligence, Daesh has emerged. And for two years, the Afghanpeople came, cried loud about their suffering, of violations. Nothing wasdone,” he said.
Karzai further noted that US officials used Daesh as an excuse to drop an11-ton GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb, nicknamed the ‘Motherof all Bombs’, in Achin district of Afghanistan’s eastern province ofNangarhar on April 13, 2017.In this file photo, Daesh militants stand handcuffed while being presentedto the media at a police headquarter in Jalalabad, eastern Afghanistan.(Photo by AFP)
On December 23, 2017, Kabulov warned that an estimated 10,000 members ofthe Takfiri terrorist group were present in Afghanistan, and that theirnumber was growing.
He stressed that Moscow was particularly worried about Daesh’s expandingfoothold in northern Afghan provinces bordering Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
“Russia was among the first to be sounding the alarms in connection withthe emergence of Daesh in Afghanistan,” the high-ranking Russian diplomatsaid.
“Daesh has significantly increased its power in the country recently.According to our estimates, the number of militants exceeds 10,000 andcontinues to grow, particularly due to new militants arriving from Syriaand Iraq,” Kabulov said at the time.