Some 41 percent of the Afghan population resides in a contested district and more than nine percent reside in a Taliban controlled district, according to a new study by FDD’s Long War Journal.
The US military and Resolute Support have yet to identify Raziq’s assassin as a member of the Taliban, let alone acknowledge that he trained in a Taliban camp.
The Afghanistan watchdog was finally able to release the military’s own district-level assessment, allowing for a direct comparison with our data. The Taliban currently controls 37 districts, contests 200, and claims to control two more.
Afghan officials denied that the Gomal district center in Paktika province was overrun at the end of August. Video shows that Gomal was indeed seized by the Taliban.
The State Department’s newly released Country Reports on Terrorism says that Pakistan “did not take substantial action against the Afghan Taliban,” including the Haqqani Network, in 2016. The Taliban’s leadership has long had a presence in Pakistan.
The Islamic State claims it operates in multiple Afghan provinces, and runs a training camp in Farah.
Groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba have previously been banned in Pakistan, but continue to receive the support of the military and intelligence establishment.
The spokesman for al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) has released a statement condemning the Pakistani Taliban’s attack on a Peshawar school earlier this week, calling it “un-Islamic.”
