Af IS fighters from Pakistan |
Almost 70% of the fighters of the Islamic State in Afghanistan are from the ranks of the Pakistani Taliban who have switched allegiance to the group led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a top US Army general has said.The IS formed its “Wilayah Khorasan” – a branch encompassing Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of India – in January 2015 and numerous reports have suggested that members of several Pakistan-based jihadi groups have defected to it.Gen John W Nicholson, the commander of the US forces in Afghanistan, estimated the current strength of the IS in Afghanistan at between 1,000 and 1,500. So 70%, roughly, of those fighters are from the TTP (Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan) and many of them are Pakistani Pashtun from the Orakzai Agency, Nicholson said at the Pentagon recentl.
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