KABUL - President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani has said the counter-terrorism operations to suppress the loyalists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group are successfully and effectively being conducted in Nangarhar province.
The Office of the President in a statement said President Ghani shared the issue during a meeting with the US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter during his two-day state visit in Switzerland.
President Ghani urged the US defense chief to further equip the Afghan Air Force and Afghan National Army (ANA) forces, specifically the 205th Atul Corps in a bid to eliminate the threat of the ISIS loyalists in the country.
He said the menace of terrorism is not only threatening Afghanistan but is a threat to the region and the world and to fight terror will require short term, mid term and long term cooperation.
The remarks by President Ghani comes as there have been growing concerns regarding the growing activities of the loyalists of the terror group as they have been trying to expand foothold in the country.
The U.S. Department of State recently designated the Khorasan branch of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) as a terrorist organization.
The Khorasan branch dubbed as ‘Khorasan province – Wilayah Khorasan’ is the territorial scope of the terror group covering parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan but the loyalists of the terror group is mainly operational in some remote regions of Afghanistan bordering the Durand Line located between Afghanistan and Pakistan. (KP)