WASHINGTON - The U.S State Department said in its annual report on terrorism that the Taliban conducted more terror attacks in 2015 than Daesh – effectively putting Afghanistan's insurgent group at the top of the global terror log.
The report stated that the Taliban carried out 1093 attacks in 2015 against Daesh's 931.
Afghan Senator Gul Mohammad Rasouly layed the blame on neighboring countries. "Taliban have direct contact with Pakistan's ISI and the ISI have relations with Saudi Arabia and other countries, and the Taliban is backed by those countries," said Rasouly.
The state department also said that the total number of terrorist attacks in Afghanistan increased by seven percent between 2014 and 2015, while the total number of deaths increased by 17 percent.
"Whenever Taliban face defeat in the battle field against the security forces then the Taliban turn to conduct horrible activities like [taking people] hostage and others. Taliban don't know any boundaries," said Qanbar Ali Tabish a university lecturer.
However, in Afghanistan the percentage of total fatalities comprised by perpetrator deaths was especially high – 47 percent, compared to 24 percent worldwide.
In the report, the state department said the increase in the number of perpetrators killed in terrorist attacks in 2015 accounts for 72 percent of the increase in total fatalities in Afghanistan.
Like Iraq, India, Libya, and Syria, Afghanistan also experienced a large increase (55 percent) in the number of people kidnapped or taken hostage in terrorist attacks in 2015.
Information about perpetrator groups was reported for two-thirds of all attacks in Afghanistan in 2015 (67 percent).
Nearly all of these (95 percent) were attributed to the Taliban.
"America now sees that the Taliban not only has relations with other terrorist groups but they [Taliban] also have relations with the countries opposed to America so therefore America will take a hard stance towards the Taliban," said Ahmad Sayedi a political analyst.
Attacks carried out by the Taliban in 2015 killed more than 4,400 people, including at least 2,300 perpetrators, and wounded more than 4,600.
The Khorasan Chapter of Daesh emerged in Afghanistan for the first time in 2015, and was responsible for four percent of attacks.
Three of the 20 deadliest individual attacks in 2015 took place in Afghanistan—in Kunduz, Ghazni, and Kolalgu.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for all three of these attacks.
The report stated that attacks against police targets, especially police buildings, checkpoints, and security forces, comprised 45 percent of terrorist attacks in Afghanistan in 2015.
Police targets in Afghanistan were more than twice as prevalent as police targets worldwide (19 percent).
As in Iraq, suicide attacks remained especially frequent in Afghanistan, comprising eight percent of all terrorist attacks in 2015, compared to six percent worldwide.
However, the number of suicide attacks in Afghanistan decreased by 17 percent in 2015, compared to 2014.
Terrorist attacks took place in 33 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces in 2015, and were even more geographically dispersed than they have been in recent years.
From 2012 to 2014, the five provinces that were most frequently attacked comprised at least 40 percent of all attacks in Afghanistan, and Helmand province experienced the most attacks by a relatively wide margin.
In 2015, only 34 percent of all attacks took place in the five provinces that saw the most attacks: Helmand (eight percent), Nangarhar (eight percent), Ghazni (six percent), Kandahar (six percent), and Kabul (six percent).
In 2015, the number of total attacks in Afghanistan did increase 127 percent between February (88 attacks) and May (200 attacks); however, this trend is obscured in the global statistics due to considerable decreases in the number of terrorist attacks in Iraq, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, and Nigeria during the first six months of the year, read the report.
The report also indicated a sharp increase in the number of kidnappings in Afghanistan in 2015. A total of 1,112 people were kidnapped, a 55 percent increase on the previous year.(Tolonews)