Afghanistan’s Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Tuesday (September 21) there was no evidence of Islamic State or al Qaeda militants being in the country, days after Islamic State claimed responsibility for bomb attacks in the eastern city of Jalalabad.
Since toppling the Western-backed government in Kabul last month, the Taliban have faced pressure from the international community to renounce ties with al Qaeda, the group behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
At the same time, they have had to deal with a series of attacks claimed by an affiliate of Islamic State, with which they have been in conflict for several years over a mix of economic and ideological disputes.
The Afghan affiliate of Islamic State, known as Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), after an old name for the region, first appeared in eastern Afghanistan in 2014 and later made inroads into other areas, particularly the north.
The group claimed responsibility for a series of bomb attacks in the city of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan at the weekend. It also claimed a suicide bomb attack at Kabul airport last month that killed 13 U.S. troops and scores of Afghan civilians who had crowded outside the airport gates.
Mujahid also said the Taliban will be appointing women to cabinet positions at some point and was working hard to “lay the groundwork for the education of high school girls”.
Some Afghan girls returned to primary schools with gender-segregated classes on Saturday (September 18), but older girls faced an anxious wait with no clarity over if and when they would be able to resume their studies at the secondary school level.
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