KABUL - The current security situation in Afghanistan is far worse than it was in 2009, National Security Advisor Mohammad Hanif Atmar has acknowledged.
In an interview published on Thursday, Atmar said there was a whole set of factors that fuelled the current wave of insecurity and instability in the country.
"It's no longer about lone wolves or one specific terrorist organisation. It's about the evil axis of three actors - violent extremism, criminal economics and state sponsorship of terrorists,” he said.
Atmar told The Times of India the three factors had come together to challenge the Afghan state, turn it into a sanctuary for international terrorism and expand the criminalised economy.
The advisor claimed the Islamic State (Daesh) and Taliban had "a symbiotic relationship".  He spurned the impression the two terrorist outfits would not fight.
"This idea that Taliban and Daesh are opposed to each other is wrong. No Daesh (fighter) has come from Syria or Iraq; it's actually the morphing and mutating of Taliban, TTP (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan) and IMU into Daesh.
“They are the same people, but there is a lot of re-branding here," he said, adding the groups might be fighting in Nangarhar, but they were collaborating against the Ashraf Ghani government in the northeast.
At a meeting in a few weeks from now, Afghanistan, Russia, India, the US and other players would work out regional and global strategies to tackle curb instability in Afghanistan, he said.(Pajhwok)