Mawlawi Ahmad Kandahari, the second ‘most prominent’ Taliban commander, has been killed by the Afghan national forces in an operation in Kandahar. Afghan National Directorate Chief, Ahmad Zia Saraj on Tuesday informed that Kandahari was reportedly assigned as the group’s military chief in Kandahar province of the country.
Saraj said Kandahari was the second most prominent figure in the Taliban following Mullah Akhtar Mansour. Reports indicate the incident happened on Monday afternoon at around 3:00 pm local time, as per Khaama Press. This comes as the US and its allies have announced that they will withdraw their troops from Afghanistan till September 11. Saraj said that the Taliban have provided a platform for other terrorist groups to operate in Afghanistan and that the Taliban uses them by any means to attack the Afghan forces. He also explained that 60 percent of Daesh affiliates in Afghanistan are Pakistanis. The NDS chief stressed that 407 detained Daesh members belong to 14 different countries, most of them captured on the frontlines. Daesh in Afghanistan travel to Iran and Pakistan through Turkey and then reaches the Afghan premises.
In regards to Daesh’s leader Aslam Farooqi, Saraj added “whenever Pakistan hands over Taliban prisoners to us, we will hand over Farooqi to Pakistan”. The official also informed that Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) also discovered and defused 556 various types of IEDs in Kandahar.
