Taliban kill six ISIS members involved in Kabul classroom attack

Fighters killed were part of attacks on a mosque and a tutoring institute in Afghanistan capital, Taliban spokesman said

Taliban fighters on guard after a bomb attack on a mosque in Kabul on September 23. EPA
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Taliban security forces killed six ISIS members in a raid in Kabul, a spokesman for the ruling group's administration said on Saturday.

The ISIS members killed in the overnight operation were involved in an attack on a mosque in Kabul and an education centre in which dozens of female students were killed, Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi said.

"They were the attackers of the Wazir Akbar Khan mosque and also … of the Kaaj Institute,” said Ahmadi, who said one Taliban member was killed in the operation.

No group claimed responsibility for either attack.

The explosion at the female section of the Kaaj Institute on September 30 killed 53 people, most of them girls and young women.

On September 23, at least seven people were killed and more than 40 wounded in an explosion near a mosque in Wazir Akbar Khan, a heavily fortified neighbourhood once home to embassies and foreign force bases.

Since the Taliban took over in 2021, they said they had focused on security after decades of war.

After a series of explosions in recent months, the UN said security was deteriorating.

The Afghan affiliate of ISIS, known as Islamic State Khorasan, after an old name of the region, are enemies of the Taliban.

Fighters loyal to ISIS first appeared in eastern Afghanistan in 2014 and later made inroads in other areas.

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Updated: October 22, 2022, 7:50 AM