Hafiz Saeed, the leader of the Islamic State group in the Afghanistan and Pakistan region, has been killed in a drone strike, the Afghan intelligence agency says.It said Saeed died in Achin in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province on Friday night. But IS has rejected the claims, telling the BBC Hafiz Saeed Khan “is alive”.Some 30 other militants were reportedly killed in the strike, but there has been no independent verification.Although IS denied Saeed’s death, the group did confirm that Shahidullah Shahid, a former member of the Pakistani Taliban who defected to the group, was killed in the drone attack. On the other hand NDS claimed that the intelligence agency passed on information to the foreign forces about a meeting of Islamic State leaders which was being attended by Hafiz Saeed Khan. “Coalition forces bombed the meeting,” the NDS said.Earlier in the year, leaders of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan in Bajaur had declared allegiance to the Islamic State . “Chief of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Bajaur Maulana Abu Bakar and his deputy Qari Zahid, all members of the central ‘shura’ (council), commanders, scholars and judges of the Islamic court have recognised Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as Khalifa,” Daish spokesperson for the region Shahidullah Shahid had said then. The residual US military in Afghanistan is concerned about the rise of IS in the area and is using its remaining military strength to target IS and prevent its rise in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the US military’s view, the elimination of Hafez Saeed will prove a major blow to the embryonic presence of IS in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theatre. The blow comes less than six months after a drone strike killed Abdul Rauf Khadim, the IS number two in Afghanistan.he timing of the drone strikes is also significant. They came around the time when the Kabul government and the Taliban were talking peace in Murree. This could be another sweetener to push forward the Afghan reconciliation process as both Kabul and the Taliban have a common enemy in the shape of IS. Should IS try and increase its footprint in Afghanistan, it will undoubtedly create problems for the Taliban as the former tries and wins over foot soldiers to fight for the ‘caliphate’. In fact, it has been reported that the Taliban had written to ‘caliph’ Baghdadi basically warning him to stay out of Afghanistan.These targeted blows to the Taliban-turned-IS militants reflect a number of current realities. First and foremost, the defections from the Taliban, both Afghan and Pakistani, to IS should serve as a wake up call to the Pakistani authorities, who remain in denial about the emerging IS threat. Second, the taking out of this newly emerging IS’s top commanders through US drone strikes can be considered the fruits of the close collaboration emerging between the US, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Such collaboration may have been inconceivable during Karzai’s tenure. It is the advent of President Ashraf Ghani that has paved the way and opened the door to cooperation, at considerable political risk domestically to President Ghani.States afflicted by the IS presence have still to come together to jointly combat the IS menace. The exception that is emerging is the trilateral cooperation amongst Kabul, Islamabad and Washington. The recent successes stemming from this cooperation, particularly the targeting of the looming IS presence/threat, could be seen as a role model for other neighbouring and allied states.
pk.shafaqna.com
